PHOENIX — A Mesa woman was sentenced this week to 66 months in prison for defrauding Arizona’s Medicaid program.
Diana Moore was also ordered to pay more than $21 million in restitution to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) after pleading guilty to fraud and money laundering on July 10, 2023.
The 44-year-old fraudulently billed AHCCCS, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona. It benefits from a billing program that allows Native Americans to receive health care before a prepayment review. Almost all AHCCCS enrollees that Moore bills are part of the American Indian Health Plan.
Moore was the owner of two behavioral health counseling services, Harmony Family Services and Harmony Family Services II, and also applied for another behavioral health counseling service, Logan Family Health, LLC.
In January 2020, Moore began collecting AHCCCS member IDs by paying other providers to transport members to her own facilities for a day.
After members left her facilities, she billed AHCCCS and claimed she provided treatment to those members for up to 90 days.
Moore falsely claimed that her facilities provided counseling services to enrollees for at least eight hours every day, five days a week, for months, even though Moore did not provide those services.
Moore also filed claims for AHCCCS members who were dead or in prison at the time Moore allegedly provided treatment to those individuals.
She was ordered to confiscate four homes, seven luxury cars, designer clothes, luxury jewelry and artwork. All of the items, more than 100 items in total, were purchased by Moore using the money she obtained through her fraud scheme.
“Diana Moore’s sentencing should be a reminder that there are serious consequences for this type of criminal behavior,” said Carissa Messick, IRS CI Special Agent in Charge, Phoenix Field Office, in a press release. “IRS CI is methodically working to bring fraudsters to justice and restore confidence in our public programs.”
During sentencing, the court said Moore was a fraud disproportionately affected the Native American population of Arizona.
“The American Indian Health Plan exists to help an underserved community overcome barriers to treatment,” U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino said in a press release. “Defendant abused this program and the unique identification numbers it generated to benefit herself—in some cases by billing patients she never treated and in other cases by falsely inflating the length of treatment.” I thank the Internal Revenue Service for its financial acumen in bringing the accused to justice and the AHCCCS Office of the Inspector General for its valuable assistance.”