PHILADELPHIA. – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Oksana Kredens, 60, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was sentenced by United States District Judge Kelley Brisbon Hodge to 20 months in prison for her participation in a conspiracy to commit health care fraud. In addition to her term of incarceration, Kredens was ordered to serve a three-year period of supervised release, forfeit the sum of $81,000, and pay $66,869 in restitution, a $10,000 fine, and a $100 special assessment.
In October 2023, the defendant pleaded guilty to conspiring with various companies allegedly supplying home-based personal assistance services to certain Medicaid recipients in Philadelphia and other counties in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Although Medicaid managed care organizations were billed for personal assistance services, in reality, for some recipients those services were not rendered. Instead, the defendant worked out arrangements with the recipients to pay them cash instead of providing care.
Kredens then recruited people to be employed on paper by the companies allegedly providing the care. The company billed and was paid for services as though the services had been rendered by the fake employees; the recipients received cash instead of the services; and the fake employee recruits, who frequently had cash income sources, were able to earn W-2 income. The defendant collected cash from each recruited worker in the amount of his or her payroll check or deposit, paid the recipients from the collected cash and kept the difference for herself.
“Looting money from Medicaid strains the system and cheats all the taxpayers who fund it,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “This sentence holds Oksana Kredens accountable for her criminal acts. Health care fraud costs this country billions of dollars each year. That’s why my office and are our partners are committed to fighting fraud, one case at a time.”
The case was investigated by the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Elizabeth Abrams.
