Healthcare Provider Executives Indicted in Multi-Million-Dollar D.C. Medicaid Fraud: About $14 Million Billed, Minutes-Long Calls Charged as an Hour
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced on November 5 that a 10-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court charges two executives of a District-based healthcare provider and one of their community support workers in connection with a scheme to bill D.C. Medicaid for mental health services for juveniles that were never provided or were invoiced at grossly inflated rates, causing losses of millions of dollars to the D.C. Medicaid program. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced the case, numbered 26-CR-263.
"No one stealing from taxpayer-funded programs is safe. As alleged, these defendants treated Medicaid as a personal piggy bank in a scheme that caused millions in losses, billing for services never provided while funding luxury vehicles and other extravagant purchases," said U.S. Attorney Pirro. "We will continue to uncover and prosecute fraud until these schemes are dismantled and taxpayer dollars are protected from abuse."
According to the indictment, from January 2022 through February 2025, Quality Healthcare Services billed D.C. Medicaid approximately $14 million for Mental Health Rehabilitation Services. The company, Quality Healthcare Services, LLC, provides mental health rehabilitative services to youth and adolescent beneficiaries from low-income families.
Mwasi Songambele, 52, is a citizen of Tanzania who resides in Laurel, Maryland, and has a pending final order of removal from the United States. She is the controlling executive of the company and runs its day-to-day operations, and is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, four counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Maya Cheyo, 31, of Brambleton, Virginia, is Songambele's daughter and the company's Chief Operating Officer and Human Resources Director; she is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and two counts of health care fraud. Vanessa Kuh, 29, of Lanham, Maryland, a community support worker at the company, is charged with the same counts as Cheyo.
According to the indictment, Songambele instructed employees on how to document and bill Medicaid for Mental Health Rehabilitative Services (MHRS). She, along with Cheyo, Kuh, and at least three other unnamed co-conspirators, allegedly inflated the amount of time spent conducting MHRS or documented MHRS encounters that never occurred. Songambele allegedly instructed the co-conspirators to bill four units, or about one hour, for all MHRS telehealth encounters even if the call only lasted a few minutes. To avoid scrutiny from the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health, management instructed them to pick a random time for the length of service, between 53 and 67 minutes, to make the length of the telehealth call appear more realistic. She additionally instructed them to "make sure to use" all 600 units for a telehealth consumer — the total amount authorized by Medicaid for a consumer during a 180-day period — without regard to medical necessity and without regard to whether the services had actually been performed.
The indictment also seeks the forfeiture of a fleet of luxury vehicles, including a 2024 Mercedes-Benz G550, a 2023 Mercedes-Benz G550, a 2022 Mercedes-Benz 2500 Cargo Van, a 2020 Mercedes-Benz C300, and a 2023 Land Rover Defender, as well as a house on the 7000 block of Tranquility Road in Laurel, Maryland, and a Panthere de Cartier watch, medium model.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office, the D.C. Office of the Inspector General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. The matter is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Facci. An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
(Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia)
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国司法部总部罗伯特·肯尼迪大楼。本案由哥伦比亚特区联邦检察官办公室宣布起诉。APK 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington. The indictment was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. By APK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
