FBI Press Release: Nursing Home Abuse: Owner Cheats Government and Neglects Residents

Not enough food. Little air conditioning or heat. Roofs leaking to the point that barrels and plastic sheets were used to catch rain water. Trash that piled up in dumpsters. Flies and rodents everywhere, along with rampant mold and mildew.

These were just some of the horrible conditions that elderly residents of three Georgia nursing homes lived under for several years.

The primary culprit: the owner of these homes who, despite having received more than $32.9 million in payments from Medicare and Medicaid for residents’ care, elected to pocket much of the money instead.

But he didn’t get away with it. Earlier this month, George Dayln Houser was convicted in Atlanta of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. Houser’s accomplice and wife, Rhonda Washington Houser, pled guilty last December.

To receive Medicare and Medicaid payments, Houser agreed to provide his residents with a safe and clean physical environment, nutritional meals, medical care, and other assistance. But as complaints began to roll in from residents, family members, nursing home staffers, and vendors hired to provide services, it became clear he had no intention of doing so.

These complaints led to an investigation by the FBI’s Atlanta office—in concert with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation. Evidence gathered by investigators and later introduced at trial showed that the services Houser provided to residents were so deficient that the judge determined them “worthless.” It was a precedent-setting case…the first time ever a defendant was federally convicted at trial for submitting payment claims for worthless services.

Full Press Release and Source:
Nursing Home Abuse - Owner Cheats Government and Neglects Residents