Craig S. Morford
United States Attorney
Ellen Bowden McIntyre
Assistant U.S. Attorney
(615) 736-2125
CHARLES MADISON WARREN, III ORDERED TO PAY $533,951
FOR HEALTH CARE FRAUD
Nashville, TN - April 23, 2007 - Craig S. Morford, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, announced that Charles Madison Warren, III was ordered to pay $533,951 in restitution to the Medicare program for committing health care fraud. Warren previously pled guilty to engaging in a scheme to defraud Medicare in violation of Title18, United States Code, Section 1347, and making false statements about health care matters in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1035. United States District Judge William J. Haynes, Jr. previously sentenced Warren to serve 1 year and 1 day in federal prison, to be followed by 11 months and 29 days in a community corrections center. Judge Haynes gave his restitution order at a different time than his sentencing order, because he asked Medicare’s fiscal intermediary to calculate the extent of Medicare’s loss in this case. Those loss calculations showed that Warren’s conduct caused a loss to the Medicare program of $533,951.
At the time when these crimes were committed, Warren owned and operated two companies based in Clarksville, Tennessee: Complete Home Health Care, Inc. (“Complete”), a home health agency that served Medicare beneficiaries, and Complete Health Professional Services, Inc. (“CHPS”), an agency providing private duty nursing services to non-Medicare beneficiaries. According to the facts established at the plea hearing, Complete was certified as a Medicare home health provider, but CHPS was not. The hearing further showed that Warren submitted misleading documents to Medicare that hid the existence of CHPS as an entity, falsely asserted that Warren was not employed by CHPS, and improperly sought reimbursement for non-Medicare costs of CHPS from Medicare during the years 1998, 1999 and 2000. By submitting these misleading representations, as shown at the plea hearing, Warren caused Complete to receive substantially more Medicare reimbursements than Complete was entitled to receive for these years.
The conviction and restitution order was the result of an investigation conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.