Investigators: Small Voice, Big Investigation

The FOX 9 Investigators get many tips about people and businesses taking advantage of the vulnerable. So when a woman whose very life depends on quality health care learned she wasn't getting what your tax dollars paid for, she used her small voice to launch a big investigation into a company that in just four months took in half a million bucks, while potentially putting their clients at risk.

Every day thousands of Minnesotans rely on what is called a personal care attendant. It is someone who helps them with simple medical care, cooking and cleaning -- while nurses are qualified and paid to handle the more complicated medical needs.

Ometta Vent Care Services offers vulnerable adults ventilator service. Two to three people live in a luxurious apartment in Plymouth, and most depend on ventilators.

In a hidden camera interview, Ometta's co-owner Barb Currin said the apartment set-up works well, but the FOX 9 investigators found evidence that Ometta has denied its vulnerable patients everything from nursing care to basic supplies.

The Attorney General is investigating Ometta for billing fraud -- charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for a level of care it simply didn't provide.

Patient Kathy Robson was concerned with the level of care she was receiving, and called a state hotline to get a county health nurse to visit. The nurse asked about Robson about the care she was getting, and found it was inadequate. Robson was supposed to be receiving 24-hour nursing care, which she wasn't. But Medicaid was paying Ometta as though she did.

The state has checked other patient records, comparing what Ometta charged against the amount of time the nurses actually worked. In just four months of 2008, more than $500,000 was overbilled.

It appears that Ometta defrauded the Medicard program by overbilling for PCA care -- charging for hours not worked, and billing as though clients were getting one-on-one care even if a PCA was working with three clients at a time.

The former workers don't know how Ometta billed the state, they just know they felt overwhelmed and understaffed.

Five PCAs and one nurse were willing to come forward to FOX 9 agreed that Ometta was not properly training new employees, a claim backed up by a recent state health department inspection.

The former workers also say they were expected to do jobs they weren't qualified to do, like suctioning a client's lungs. They say they kept working, even when there weren't enough basic supplies like sterile gloves. But it was too much when their paychecks started to bounce in January -- which made them wonder where all the taxpayer money went.

Property tax records show that Barb Currin owns a half-million dollar home, and the state is also looking into a company trip to the Bahamas.

Search warrant: Ometta Vent Care Services