A former Department of Health and Mental Hygiene employee defrauded the state of $1.7 million targeted toward some of the state?s most vulnerable health care recipients, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said.
The Office of the Attorney General charged Donna Lam and her husband, Wilson Lam, in a civil complaint alleging they created as many as 20 fictitious companies, such as Longpoint Med Services, and then submitted claims for them to the state Kidney Disease Program.
“Longpoint Med Services does not exist. I created it as a KDP provider. Processing claims through the system to generate checks that I cashed since approximately 2001,” Lam said in court documents.
“The state Kidney Disease Program is basically money going to people with advanced kidney disease who have no other resort,” Gansler told The Examiner.
While criminal charges have not been filed, the civil complaint does not pre-empt more serious charges in a case this major, according to the attorney general?s office.
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary John Colmers said in a statement Tuesday that he would “pursue with vigor all legal remedies available.”
Tipped off by banking officials, DHMH launched an internal investigation exposing the scheme, according to the statement.
“This is strictly an internal financial concern ? we do not believe that any personal or health information has been compromised,” Colmers said.
“None of the benefits used by the 2,400 individuals enrolled in the Kidney Disease Program have been affected, and program services are continuing uninterrupted.”
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is reviewing other programs to make sure other “irregularities” do not exist, but department officials would not comment further.
Also Tuesday, Gansler announced sentencing in a fraud against the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
Denise Rosado, 40, of Glen Burnie, will serve six months of a three-year sentence, followed by three years of probation for admitting to stealing $33,269 from the state of Maryland, where she was employed as an administrative assistant.
