Services halted at Cranston home care facility

CRANSTON, R.I. — A Cranston home care facility is unable to provide services after being accused of Medicaid fraud.

The St. Jude Home Care facility serves about 1,000 patients.

An official at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services of Rhode Island told NBC 10 that the facility was suspected of over-billing Medicaid and that the company's paperwork was suspect.

The information was passed on to federal officials who pulled St. Jude's certification to bill Medicaid.

If the facility can't bill for the work and can't get reimbursed, it can't do the work.

Owner Priscilla Pascale claims an official at EOHHS has a vendetta against the business and that she didn't do anything wrong.

"(The official) took it upon himself to be judge and jury without asking us any questions, without having a trial, a hearing, without him ever having called me. He made up his mind that we were guilty of fraud and he stopped us from being able to bill the Medicaid program, and publicly announce that we were under the suspicion of fraud, which means no other health insurance will deal with us," she said.

Pascale said she has the paperwork to prove she didn't do anything wrong, and that she's hired lawyers.

Pascale said if the facility can't open about 300 workers will lose their jobs and patients will need to find new care.

NBC 10 has confirmed that the facility is under criminal investigation by the Rhode Island Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Unit.