$3.4 Million Medicaid Fraud Inquiry Hovers Over Nursing Home Where Comatose Woman Was Raped and Had Baby

State investigators in Arizona are examining $3.4 million in possible Medicaid fraud at the parent company of a Phoenix nursing center where a woman in a vegetative state was raped and gave birth to a boy in December, according to court records.

The inquiry into the company, Hacienda HealthCare, began in 2016, when investigators at the health agency that manages the state’s Medicaid program started asking questions about Hacienda’s organizational and accounting structure. Investigators wanted to know whether Hacienda executives improperly shifted overhead expenses in the company to a subsidiary at the same location that then overcharged the state’s Medicaid program. read more »

Philadelphia Archdiocese places priest on leave over sex abuse allegations

A priest has been put on administrative leave after new allegations surfaced he sexually abused a minor in the early 1980s, the Philadelphia Archdiocese announced Sunday.

Church officials also announced that it had found two other priests unsuitable for ministry “based on substantiated allegations that they sexually abused minors in the early 1980s.”

The announcements come amid increased scrutiny of the Roman Catholic church’s handling of abuse allegations, after the release of a grand jury report in August 2018 detailing more than 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse at the hands of 301 clergy in six other Pennsylvania archdioceses. That grand jury report did not cover the Philadelphia Archdiocese. read more »