PROVIDENCE – U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha and R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha announced Monday they are intervening in a civil lawsuit originally filed in October 2020 against the now defunct The Journey to Hope, Health and Healing Inc. and its former CEO over the state’s Medicaid program being billed for millions of dollars for disorder treatment services that the former health organization allegedly failed to provide.
According to the doccument filed April 14, The Journey to Hope, Health and Healing and Kenneth L. Richardson Jr. allegedly failed to provide treatment plans for adequate counseling patients for whom they were providing methadone. At the same time, the organization and Richardson, the lawsuit alleges, collected more than $15 million from the federal- and state-administered Medicaid program between January 2015 and July 2021.
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The orginal lawsuit was filed in October 2020 when two former Journey employees, Sara Quaresma and Michael Delmonico, turned whistleblowers. The case was unsealed on Monday following the governments’ filing.
Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that the organization’s upper management instructed its staff to falsify records to make it seem that the missing services were provided to patients. Both federal and local officials claim in the suit that more than half of the of the amount claimed by The Journey to Hope, Health and Healing during the noted time period was false.
The government, according to the lawsuit, is looking to recover up to three times the amount paid as a result of the alleged false claims, plus penalties, and is seeking a jury trial for this case.
In October 2021, The Journey to Hope, Health and Healing’s four local treatment programs were acquired by Dalla-based
The lawsuit can be read here.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
