The proprietor and operator of a San Francisco-based house care company acquired a two-year jail sentence.

Veronica Katz – the proprietor and operator of HealthNow Residence Healthcare and Hospice (HealthNow) – was indicted by a federal grand jury on October 17, 2023, together with two co-defendants. Katz pleaded responsible in April 2024 to at least one rely of well being care fraud.

Along with the two-year jail sentence, Katz should additionally pay $543,634.34 in restitution.

As well as, Katz was sentenced to a few years of supervised launch and should pay a $50,000 superb.

Katz will start serving her sentence on January 6, 2025.

Throughout her time at HealthNow, Katz submitted false documentation to Medicare to acquire reimbursement. It is a violation of Medicare guidelines and rules.

“Below Katz's plea settlement, she participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare that took plenty of types, together with utilizing the identities of licensed physicians in digital well being data and billing info with out the practitioners' information or consent; directing sure people to organize Begin of Care (SOC) types, though the people weren’t registered nurses (RNs), as required by Medicare; manipulating sufferers' digital medical data to make it seem as if RNs accomplished the affected person's SOCs; and billing Medicare for bodily remedy providers that Katz knew weren’t offered,” in keeping with a information launch from the U.S. Lawyer's Workplace for the Northern District of California.

Katz additionally admitted that she took steps to derail legislation enforcement's investigation into HealthNow. She did this by telling her staff to deceive the FBI and say that staff had been educated and supervised by an RN whereas conducting SOC assessments.

Along with Katz, Vennesa Herrera was named co-suspect. She pleaded responsible on August 30, 2021, to conspiracy to commit well being care fraud. She might be sentenced on March 17, 2025.

The trial of one other co-defendant, Simon Katz, is scheduled for Could 12, 2025.