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Hemal Patel, 59, of Bensalem (Bucks County), forged doctors’ signatures, stole personal identities, and pocketed kickbacks from a home care agency that billed Medicaid for fake services, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The case is part of the Department of Justice’s 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which charged 324 people and led to the seizure of more than $245 million in cash, luxury cars, and other assets.
According to federal court documents, Patel ran the scheme from January 2020 to June 2024, funneling fake patients to a home care agency—called Agency-1 in court records—in exchange for cash kickbacks. She received payments as high as $5,000 at a time for referrals, with fees based on hourly billing for services that were never rendered.
Forged Doctor Signatures, Fake Assessments, Overseas Patients
Prosecutors say Patel forged doctors’ certification forms to enroll patients in Pennsylvania’s Community HealthChoices Medicaid waiver program. Two of those patients—identified in court records as Victim-1 and Victim-2—never received care. One had left the U.S. for India, while the other tried to withdraw from the program but was enrolled anyway.
In one instance, Patel impersonated Victim-1 and that person’s niece during a video call with a managed care organization to fraudulently reactivate home care services. Fake caregivers then logged clock-ins and clock-outs through an app to make it seem like care was being provided.
Patel received $2 per hour for each hour billed in the patients’ names, while caregivers were paid around $11 an hour. The home care agency was reimbursed about $21 per hour by Medicaid for services that were never performed.
Dozens Of Kickbacks Over 3 Years
Court documents list 27 separate kickback payments made to Patel between May 2020 and December 2023. The payments ranged from $1,000 to $5,120 each, totaling well over $100,000 in illegal earnings for referring “clients” and “caregivers” into the scheme.
Patel also used victims’ names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates without their permission to enroll them and maintain billing activity.
Prosecutors say Patel and her partners used electronic visit verification software hosted in Virginia to falsify care logs, triggering Medicaid payouts through interstate wire communications.
If convicted, Patel will forfeit at least $109,696 in fraud proceeds already identified by federal investigators, according to the notice of forfeiture.
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