Lincoln--Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson announced today that his office has settled a civil lawsuit with an Omaha-area mental health provider Jennifer Sharp and her business, Sharp’s Counseling and Consulting Agency. The settlement alleges that Sharp and her business filed false claims with Nebraska Medicaid and its managed care contractors.

 

Between September 1, 2013, and November 30, 2018, Sharp and her business submitted 898 claims for mental health services under Medicaid. Medicaid and its managed care contractors paid Sharp $67,987.16 for those services. The State alleged that Sharp failed to maintain proper documentation to prove that the services were actually provided.

 

The Attorney General filed a civil action against Sharp and her business for violating Nebraska’s False Medicaid Claims Act, which allows the State to recover triple the amount that was paid to Sharp. Sharp settled the matter by paying $136,405 to the State.

 

The matter was initially investigated by Magellan Health (a Nebraska Medicaid contractor) and the Medicaid Program Integrity Unit at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. It was then referred to the Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Unit in the Attorney General’s Office for further investigation and legal action.

 

The matter was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Matt Olson and Vicki Adams of the Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Unit.  

 

The Nebraska Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $ 1,077,000 for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2021. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $359,000 for FFY 2021, is funded by the State of Nebraska.