ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis woman was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday after investigators said she submitted hundreds of false healthcare claims since 2020.
Natavia Boyd-Wells, 40, is facing four counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements related to a healthcare matter. Prosecutors say the false claims netted her a total of more than $800,000 from Missouri Medicaid and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to a press release from Sayler Fleming, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Boyd-Wells is the owner of Touch of the Heart Home Health Care LLC, which enrolled with the VA and Missouri Medicaid in 2020. In the following years, the company would make hundreds of false claims of services provided to help aging patients stay out of long-term impatient hospital and nursing home stays.
The indictment said some of the claims submitted to the VA were for more than 24 hours of care in a single day. Other claims for home health services were submitted for days in which the patient was hospitalized, and would not have been able to receive care in their own home, according to the indictment.
The press release said Missouri Medicaid paid at least $197,022 and the VA paid more than $600,000 to the company.
The case was investigated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General and the Missouri Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
“This indictment should send a clear message that the VA Office of Inspector General will vigorously investigate those who would seek to defraud VA healthcare programs,” Special Agent in Charge Gregory Billingsley with the Department of Veterans Affairs OIG said in the press release.
