Ambulance Service Accused Of Fraud

[Scaramedic]

Do not know anything about this company. Anybody have more information?

[align=center:c060bd8b4d]Ambulance Service Accused Of Fraud[/align:c060bd8b4d]

Posted: March 13, 2008 07:21 PM

A grand jury indicted Illinois-based Mercy Regional Emergency Health Services and its CEO Clayton Hobbs.

They're supposed to provide life-saving services to Green Country, now the company's CEO faces federal fraud charges.

A grand jury indicted Illinois-based Mercy Regional Emergency Health Services and its CEO Clayton Hobbs. Hobbs also heads an Oklahoma ambulance services company, Mercy Regional of Oklahoma. It operates in five Oklahoma counties, servicing Vinita, Fairfax, Cleveland and Stroud.

The company also provides back-up in Owasso.

The News On 6's Ashli Sims reports people from Mercy Regional of Oklahoma insist their company is separate from Mercy Regional of Illinois. And they say in Illinois is where the legal troubles will stay.

Mercy Regional Emergency Health Services and Mercy Regional of Oklahoma have similar names, the same CEO. They even link to one another by the same website. But Mercy Regional of Oklahoma insists the two companies are not one in the same.

"We are a completely separate different entity and our communities and our customers will be served without any problem at all," said Jim Koch, Mercy Regional of Oklahoma.

Mercy Regional in Illinois is facing big problems.

The Illinois company and CEO Clayton Hobbs are accused of bilking Medicaid and Medicare out of almost $95,000 from June 2004 to December 2006.

"Anything that should occur in Mercy Regional Illinois would not occur, would not affect Mercy Regional of Oklahoma in any way," said Koch.

Koch says that's because the Oklahoma outfit is owned by a completely different company, Centurion Health Systems. But according to state health records, Centurion is based out of Benton, Illinois, the same home-base as Mercy Regional in Illinois.

"When we first started the company they were also running the company the board of Centurion Health Systems out of the Illinois division until they moved to Oklahoma," said Koch.

One thing that was clearly not separate, Hobbs' roles until recently, he served as CEO for Mercy Regional in Illinois and in Oklahoma.

"Mr. Hobbs is an officer of Centurion Health Systems. He is on the board. He is currently on administrative leave. And he will remain on administrative leave until this matter is cleared up," said Koch.

Koch says none of this will have any effect on Oklahoma customers.

"If Mercy Regional Illinois was to dissolve, we would still be in operation, because we are a division of Centurion Health Systems. We are out there servicing them. They have nothing to worry about," said Koch.

Mercy Regional in Illinois is also accused of not paying its employees and lying to them about their benefits.

Mercy Regional in Oklahoma says they're making payroll and fully-funding benefits for employees

[Dustdevil]

What a bizarre article. Journalism at its lowest.

• :roll:

And the $95k the Illinoise company supposedly "defrauded" from Medicare is a drop in the hat compared to the millions that Medicare defrauds from EMS every year by paying only thirty-percent of the billed fee and only approving half of the bills that are submitted in the first place. Fraud begets fraud, and Medicare is the very definition of fraud.

[KE5EHI]

They came to Oklahoma about two years ago and have been expanding rapidly every since. They started as a transfer service and have grown to taking over some of the 911 services in the smaller communities and providing mutual aid to some of the fire-based services that only run a few ambulances in a busy area (from what I've been told, mutual aid consists of late night BS calls and all nursing home calls). I've been told they have filed against some of the services they want to take over with the state health department, but if they have a legit complaint, meh. Will be interesting to see how it all pans out. They seems to have taken over a lot of small town and mom-and-pop operations that really weren't making it, so it brings the question, how will they make it? So far they have been going strong.

[Ridryder 911]

My service just competed on a bid against them in a local community. The general consensus was that they were a joke at first, until they started getting more & more communities, then apparently was actually stable. They paid medics decent (without benefits) and was actually being concerned from other EMS leaders and administrators because of the rapid growth they were doing.

The rumor is that it is the same company (obviously same name, CEO, etc). I do have my suspicions and "bad instinct" about this company. Nothing formal except that they talk and attempt to underbid, that in a business sense would be near impossible to operate. If they can do so, they are a better administrator of finances than any other EMS services I am aware of.

Communities are becoming aware of many "save your community EMS" companies. (Not saying Mercy is) . We have seen more and more shady dealings, (even though our state requires a million dollar bond before operation) that are leaving communities & EMT's high and dry without payments.

R/r 911