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YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Fort Lee home health care aide working for a Hackensack-based agency billed Medicaid for services he didn’t provide during a period when he was out of the country or working another job, a state indictment alleges.
Elhan Gurban, 52, was one of three people connected to Confident Care Corporation indicted by the state grand jury on charges of scamming the Medicaid program out of more than $72,000 combined.
Separate indictments name Gurban, Roman Abashkin, 32, and Semen Rybalov, 68, both of Wayne, acting state Attorney General John J. Hoffman said this afternoon.
They join two former Confident Care employees – Naum Lavnevich, 56, of Oakland, and Anatoli Rountsev, 52, of Totowa — who were charged last month.
All three were certified homemaker home health aides at Confident Care Corporation, which has 10 satellite offices throughout New Jersey, as well as offices in Florida, Hoffman said.
Gurban was charged with 45 counts of health care claims fraud and one count each of Medicaid fraud and theft by deception.
According to the indictment, Gurban filed 1,413 false claims with Medicaid for services between January 2008 and October 2012 for services that he didn’t provide.
As a result, Medicaid paid out $64,125 on hundreds of claims filed while Gurban “was actually out of the country or at another, unrelated job,” Hoffman said.
Another indictment accuses Abashkin of 24 counts of fraud and one each of Medicaid fruad and theft by deceptionat between June 2008 and September 2009, during which 212 fraudulent claims worth $6,664 were submitted to Medicaid.
Abashkin also was out of the country at the time, Hoffman said.
The third indictment charges Rybalov with 15 counts between April 2008 and May 2010 involving 45 bogus claims that paid $2,180.
Deputy Attorney General Jordan Mamorsky presented the case to the state grand jury. Detective Kylie Mattis and Analyst B’leia Williams coordinated the investigation.
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