United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELOR IN ABILENE, TEXAS,
SENTENCED TO MORE THAN FOUR YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON, WITHOUT
PAROLE, ON HEALTH CARE FRAUD CONVICTION

Sheri Elizabeth Bell Also Ordered to Pay $404,214.89 Restitution

LUBBOCK, Texas — Sheri Elizabeth Bell, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Abilene, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay $404,214,89 in restitution, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. Bell, 37, pled guilty in July to committing health care fraud with regard to services provided to Medicaid recipients.

Sheri Elizabeth Bell was licensed by the Texas Department of State Health Services as a Licensed Professional Counselor and in March 2002, she became a Medicaid-approved provider. One of the types of assistance available to Medicaid recipients is counseling services. Medicaid recipients are authorized to receive 30 counseling sessions per year. If a patient needs additional sessions, the provider must submit a request to Medicaid to authorize additional services.

Beginning in June 2002 and continuing until mid-October 2006, Bell filed, and caused to be filed, Medicaid reimbursement claims for counseling services that were never performed. In some cases, Bell counseled one person in a family, but billed for counseling other family members. In fact, many of the claims were made on weekends or on days when Bell’s calendar and bank accounts showed her to be out of town.

In one instance, Bell submitted a claim to Medicare for the counseling of a particular patient, “JSE,” claiming she had counseled “JSE” on March 19, 2006. However, Bell’s calendar and bank account records show that she was on vacation in Washington, D.C. on that date. During the one-year period from August 2005 to August 2006, Bell billed Medicaid for 81 hours of counseling for “JSE.” “JSE’s” mother told investigators that Bell counseled her on Wednesdays, when she could leave her children at church, but that none of her children were ever counseled by Bell. In addition to the 81 hours that Bell billed Medicaid for “JSE,” Bell also billed Medicaid between 70-81 hours of counseling, per child, for each of “Mrs. E’s” other children and none of those services were ever performed.

1 As a result, Medicaid paid Bell more than $640,000, and of that amount, between $400,000 and $600,000 were for payments Medicaid made to her for fraudulent and undocumented claims.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the excellent investigative work of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s Office - Medicaid Fraud Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and said, “This case is the culmination of a thorough investigation conducted by General Abbott’s Medicaid Fraud Unit and the FBI. Our cooperative efforts with the Attorney General’s office and the FBI are crucial to ferreting out and prosecuting this type of case.”

The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy R. Burch of the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

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