Metro Detroit Home Health Care Agency Owner Convicted In $1.6M Medicare Scheme: Feds

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI — A metro Detroit nurse and home health care agency owner was convicted in a $1.6 million scheme to defraud Medicare, according to federal officials.

Ruby Scott, 55, of Farmington Hills, was found guilty of five counts of health care fraud, four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks and one count for conspiracy to defraud the United States government.

She will be sentenced on Sept. 24. She faces up to 25 years in prison.

Scott owned and operated Delta Home Health Care LLC based in Farmington Hills, officials said.

From 2018 through 2021, officials said she bribed a discharge nurse at a Detroit hospital to identify Medicare patients and fax their confidential records to Delta.

Scott paid the discharge nurse more than $130,000 through CashApp, PayPal, check, and cash, officials said.

Scott used these stolen profiles to bill Medicare for home health services, falsely claiming the patients had been certified by doctors as meeting requirements to receive home health services, including being homebound, officials said.

"In billing claims for patients who were obtained through kickbacks, as well as other claims between 2018 and 2024, Scott falsely represented to Medicare that a doctor had certified patients as meeting the Medicare requirements to receive home health services, including being homebound, when evidence proved no doctor had ever evaluated these patients for home health services," officials said.

Scott also used the names of real doctors, though the doctors had never even met the patients, officials said.

Officials said the doctors and patients were unaware their data had been compromised.

A witness testified one patient for whom Delta received thousands of dollars in payments had never received services from Scott’s company.

"Delta failed to maintain patient files for over one-third of the patients for which it submitted claims to Medicare, for whom Medicare paid Delta over $1.2 million," officials said.

Overall, officials said Scott caused roughly $1.6 million in losses to Medicare. A witness testified that the fraud drains the Medicare trust fund and could make it difficult for Medicare to pay on claims that are true and accurate.