McALLEN—A 28-year-old ambulance company owner accused of submitting more than $1 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid was convicted Tuesday after pleading guilty before a federal court judge. Victor Lee Gonzalez, the owner of Vic’s Texas Transport Inc., … Read More
Former Texas health commission lawyer Jack Stick, found guilty Monday of driving while intoxicated, will be sentenced within the next two weeks, but no final date has been set, Travis County court officials said Tuesday. The former state representative and … Read More
AUSTIN – Texas officials are giving up on getting medical providers to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding that the state for years has said was fraudulently billed for questionable dental and orthodontic procedures. After a series of … Read More
UPDATE: Stick has been sentenced to six days in jail. The man who famously carried a toy stuffed wolf into informal resolution meetings with Medicaid providers and quipped that he could “find a program violation on Jesus Christ” if Jesus … Read More
A Travis County jury on Monday convicted former state representative and Texas Health and Human Services general counsel Jack Stick of drunken driving, the latest chapter in year of problems for the former prosecutor and state lawmaker. Stick, 49, was … Read More
The top watchdog of Medicaid and other federal entitlement programs in Texas has identified more than $100 million in possible fraud and waste this fiscal year, according to the first report to the governor after years of public failures and … Read More
As reported last week by the Austin American Statesman, Stuart Bowen, the new Inspector General for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, is sending his first report to the Governor today. TDMR has obtained a copy of the full … Read More
More than three years after he was originally arrested, Jack Stick, a former state representative and previous inspector general for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, went on trial Friday for a drunk-driving charge he has fiercely contested in … Read More
If there is a poster child for dysfunction in Texas government, look no further than the agency Stuart Bowen inherited in January. The Office of Inspector General over the state’s sprawling health agency, charged with investigating Medicaid fraud and waste, … Read More
AUSTIN — Nearly three years after police pulled over a then-powerful Texas state official on suspicion of drunk driving, prosecutors are finally getting a chance to prove their case. Source: Controversial former state official’s drunk driving trial begins
Before Jack Stick resigned as chief counsel for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission amid one of the biggest political scandals in 2014, the former state representative was fighting a charge in Travis County court for driving while intoxicated. … Read More
Dallas TV station WFAA is losing its long-time, award-winning investigative reporter Byron Harris to retirement. Harris announced a few weeks ago that he would be leaving the station in October, after spending 40 years with WFAA. It goes without saying … Read More
Channel 8’s Byron Harris announced Friday that he’ll retire in October. Ed Bark posted a solid story Monday about the investigative reporter and his 40 years at the TV station. I’d like to go in a slightly different direction. Harris … Read More
Yesterday, Travis County District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued her decision in the case of Antoine Dental Centers of Houston, vindicating the practice in its payment hold case. The practice had been accused of “credible allegations of fraud” in … Read More
A district court judge on Wednesday handed state Medicaid regulators another decisive courtroom loss, adding one more notch to the Health and Human Service Commission’s Office of Inspector General’s unenviable losing streak pursuing dentists and orthodontists it claims have bilked … Read More
A name familiar to many Medicaid dentists who have felt the sting of Doug Wilson and Jack Stick’s Office of Inspector General in the last few years has resigned, per the Texas Tribune. Cody Cazares, an aide to former Health … Read More
Months after he was put on paid administrative leave amid an investigation into the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s contracting procedures, Cody Cazares, the former chief of staff to the commission’s top lawyer, has left the agency. Cazares, the former chief … Read More
The story about Dr. Rachel Trueblood settling in October 2014 with the Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General for $39,000 after the agency was demanding $16 million in Medicaid overpayments is well-known. However, the story of another … Read More
In January, Stuart Bowen took charge of a state office rocked by accusations of corruption, incompetence and inefficiency. Responsible for ferreting out fraud amid the programs and procedures of the sprawling Health and Human Services Commission, the office of Inspector General … Read More
For the record, the DWI trial that was scheduled on July 30 for former Health and Human Services Commission chief counsel and former deputy inspector general for enforcement Jack Stick has again been delayed until September 17. Stick’s original arrest … Read More
TDMR has learned that the new Health and Human Services Commission Inspector General Stuart Bowen, Jr. has been taking on and overhauling the agency’s use of statistical sampling and extrapolation. This is the most controversial tool that the agency had … Read More
The vicissitudes of Dr. Paul Dunn have been chronicled by TDMR over the last several years. Dunn first appeared on the scene when he came to Austin during the 2013 legislative session. “Credible allegation of fraud” payment hold, but told … Read More
Last Wednesday, July 16, lawyers for Antoine Dental Centers of Houston again went to court. Going Travis County District Court This time they appeared before Travis County District Court to appeal the Medicaid payment hold final decision by former Health … Read More
The eight steps you need to take to put together a program for yourself! Many people have asked what the process for establishing an effective compliance program is. At one point, having a compliance program was optional. As a result … Read More
Here is the June/July edition of the Texas Medicaid News! Hello and welcome to the Texas Medicaid news update, I’m Andy Zajac. Things have been hot and heavy over the last few weeks in Austin. 1) Our top story is … Read More
Four firms provided “proof of concept” demonstrations of their Medicaid fraud detection software to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and its Office of Inspector General back in 2011. These proof of concept projects allowed the firms to access … Read More
This past Friday at the Leon Valley Conference Center in San Antonio, Star Compliance Services and TDMR held our third healthcare compliance seminar, following our recent successful seminar in Houston and the earlier one held in February at Weslaco. Gregory … Read More
An investigation by state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott found that a former top official with the state Office of the Medicaid Inspector General improperly accepted gifts, including air travel and a job offer, from a Texas corporation that has a … Read More
The press has uncovered a lot of conduct unbecoming at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and its Office of Inspector General in the last eight months. First there was the Sunset Advisory Commission with its damning report on … Read More
This morning, TDMR was notified that Governor Greg Abbott has now signed into law SB 207, the legislation which makes major changes and improvements to the way the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General will work. … Read More
Texas owes the U.S. government $133 million for unallowable orthodontic Medicaid treatments from 2008 to 2010, according to a new report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). Many of the claims were improperly approved because they did not have … Read More
Back last August, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General released an audit report that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission was responsible for the conduct of its Medicaid claims administrator for the hundreds of … Read More
From the Office of Inspector General of Department of Health and Human Services http://oig.hhs.gov [Matt Moore] I’m Matt Moore, an audit manager in Dallas, speaking with Eugena Newton, a senior auditor who is also in our Dallas office. Eugena, your … Read More
Today, SB 207 with minor changes was approved by both Texas House and Senate conference committees. SB 207 is the bill that contains the Sunset reforms to the Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General. The next step is for … Read More
Sunday night on this Memorial Day weekend, the Texas House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 207, the legislation that will reform the Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General. The recorded vote was 142-0. The bill now goes back … Read More
The front-page of the Austin American Statesman Sunday morning carried the full story of the unprecedented ruling by the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) to award a Medicaid dentist back some $380,000 in legal fees from the Health and Human … Read More
Judges: State botched fraud case, must pay $400K in feesAUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A panel of judges has determined that Texas regulators so badly botched a Medicaid fraud investigation of a dentist that they’re responsible for paying the nearly $400,000 … Read More
Texas regulators entered a courtroom late last year claiming they should be able to keep more than $300,000 confiscated from a Corpus Christi dentist they claimed defrauded the state through a Medicaid billing scheme. Source: State’s decisive legal loss could … Read More
UPDATE: After publishing this article, TDMR was alerted that it is a DENTIST, not a medical doctor that is involved in this case. It involves the Rhoden Group from Corpus Christi with Dr. Cheryl Rhoden, DDS as the principal. This … Read More
The company at the center of a state contracting scandal, Austin data analytics firm 21CT, has dismissed its $90 million defamation lawsuit against James Frinzi, the firm’s former lobbyist turned newspaper whistle-blower. Source: 21CT drops lawsuit against fired lobbyist James … Read More
