Former executive in North Texas hospice fraud case sentenced to 4 years in federal prison

An executive with a Frisco hospice company has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for his role in a scheme that defrauded Medicare out of millions of dollars.

Slade Brown, 52, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. He was sentenced Aug. 25.

Starling Marshall McCallum, an attorney listed for Brown in court records, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Brown, formerly Novus Health Care Services’ director of marketing, worked for the organization from April 2014 to September 2015. He reported to Sam Anderson, vice president of marketing, and Bradley Harris, the company’s CEO, plea documents state.

Brown worked with Anderson and Harris to bill Medicare and Medicaid for hospice services for patients who weren’t eligible, and for hospice services that either never occurred, were not ordered by a doctor or were not medically necessary as required by the programs, according to court documents.

Brown and others also recruited physicians and assisted living facilities to receive remuneration from Novus in exchange for referrals, according to court documents.

Brown recruited licensed physicians as Novus medical directors to be compensated based on how many patient referrals they provided. One of the recruited physicians was Dr. Charles Leach, who was also charged in connection with the scheme.

Brown and others also arranged for Novus to pay for certified nursing assistants to staff assisted living facilities in exchange for patient referrals, according to court documents.

On one occasion, Harris arranged for Brown to go with another defendant, Novus triage nurse Patricia Armstrong, to an assisted living facility to recruit hospice patients. The facility gave Armstrong access to patient files, of which Armstrong selected 11. Brown then made copies of the files and gave them to Harris to enroll them in Novus hospice, court documents state.

“Brown did this even though he knew that Armstrong never met with any of the beneficiaries face-to-face and there was no physician involvement in the process,” plea papers read.

Court documents state on one occasion, Brown saw another defendant, Tammie Little, demand a check from Harris that he knew was payment for referrals she had made to Novus, court documents state.

Anderson, Leach and Armstrong each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. They were sentenced to 33 months, 57 months and 84 months in federal prison, respectively.

Harris pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of healthcare fraud and aiding and abetting and was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison.

Little was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and three counts of healthcare fraud and aiding and abetting and was sentenced to more than two years in prison.

A total of 13 defendants at Novus pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. They were sentenced to a combined 84 years in federal prison.