Home Healthcare Agency Owner Facing Decades in Jail for $1.6M Medicare Fraud Scheme
The owner and operator of a Michigan home health care company has been convicted of five counts of healthcare fraud and four counts of paying illegal healthcare kickbacks and now faces decades in jail. Ruby Scott, 55, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, the owner and operator of Delta Home Health Care LLC, was alleged to have operated a fraud scheme that caused more than $1.6 million in losses to the Medicare program. From 2018 to 2021, Scott was alleged to have fraudulently billed Medicare for home health services using stolen patient records.
Scott bribed a discharge nurse at a Detroit hospital to identify Medicare patients and fax their medical records to Delta Home Health Care. Scott developed a kickback relationship with the nurse, paying approximately $300 for each set of patient records that were successfully used to bill Medicare. The discharge nurse was paid more than $130,000 via PayPal, CashApp, cash, and check for providing the records.
Scott used confidential diagnostic and personal information to bill Medicare for home healthcare services for the patients, falsely representing that a doctor had certified that the patients satisfied the Medicare requirements for home health care services. The patients were unaware that their personal and health information was being used to submit false claims, and the doctors had never met any of the patients and did not know that their information was being used on the fraudulent claims. Medicare paid approximately $1.2 million to Delta, causing approximately $1.6 million in losses to the Medicare program.
Scott was charged with multiple counts of fraud and operating an illegal kickback scheme and was recently convicted by a federal jury in the Eastern District of Michigan. The jury found Scott guilty of five counts of health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and pay illegal health care kickbacks, and four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks. The healthcare fraud and kickback counts each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and Scott faces a maximum of 5 years in jail for the conspiracy count. Scott is due to be sentenced on September 24, 2026.
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“The [Department of Justice] Fraud Division is laser-focused on investigating and prosecuting those who commit fraud against the American people,” explained the Department of Justice in a press release announcing the guilty verdict. “The Department’s work to combat fraud supports President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.”
