A federal jury in the Eastern District of Michigan has convicted a 55-year-old Michigan nurse and home health care agency owner for running a $1.6 million scheme to defraud Medicare. Ruby Scott, of Farmington Hills, operated Delta Home Health Care LLC and used a web of bribes, stolen patient profiles, and forged doctor certifications to siphon money from the federal healthcare program between 2018 and 2024.
Trial evidence revealed that Scott paid a discharge nurse at a Detroit hospital to secretly fax confidential records of Medicare patients. Scott, who had previously co-owned another home health company, incentivized the hospital nurse by offering an extra $100 per patient to secure referrals for her new business.
In total, Scott funneled more than $130,000 to the informant using CashApp, PayPal, checks, and cash, paying roughly $300 for every patient she successfully billed to Medicare.
Scott used the stolen information to submit fraudulent claims, telling Medicare that doctors had certified the patients as homebound and eligible for home health services. However, evidence presented at trial proved no doctors had ever evaluated these patients.
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Instead, Scott forged the identities of real physicians who had never met the patients and were entirely unaware their names were being used. Witnesses testified that one patient, whose file generated thousands of dollars in payments for Delta, never received any services from the company.
Furthermore, Delta lacked patient files for more than a third of its submitted claims, a gap that accounted for over $1.2 million in Medicare payments. Testimony during the trial noted that Scott’s actions, which caused approximately $1.6 million in total losses, drain the Medicare trust fund and threaten the program’s ability to pay legitimate claims.
The jury found Scott guilty of five counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay illegal health care kickbacks, and four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks. Scheduled for sentencing on September 24, Scott faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for each fraud and kickback count, and up to five years for the conspiracy charge. A federal district court judge will determine the final sentence based on U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The announcement of the conviction was made by Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, along with FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Reuben Coleman and HHS-OIG Special Agent in Charge Thomas Ethridge. The case was investigated by the FBI Detroit Field Office and HHS-OIG, and it is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Kelly M. Warner and Ahmad Huda of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
The prosecution aligns with the Department of Justice’s recent establishment of the National Fraud Enforcement Division on April 7, which focuses on prosecuting fraud against the American public and supports the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government initiative chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. Since 2007, the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal healthcare programs and private insurers over $45 billion.
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