Oregon Department of Justice

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers today announced that a former North Coast Senior Services Agency (NCSS) employee was indicted by the Tillamook County Grand Jury on 24 felony counts including Submitting False Claims for Health Care Payment, Aggravated Theft, Computer Crime and Identity Theft. The Medicaid Fraud Unit of the Oregon Department of Justice is prosecuting the case.

The indictment alleges that Barbara Louise Kamna, an office specialist at NCSS, stole more than $250,000 from the Oregon Medicaid Program by falsifying Medicaid claims for services not actually provided. Kamna was responsible for entering data from invoices submitted by inhome caregivers paid with Medicaid funds. Based on the information from these invoices, the Department of Human Services (DHS) processes the claims and sends checks to the caregivers to pay them for their services. In 1992, Kamna established an account listing her then-teenage daughter as a Medicaid-funded caregiver; her daughter was not in fact a caregiver. For the next ten years, Kamna repeatedly created and entered falsified data claiming that her daughter provided services to numerous Medicaid recipients. The claims were then processed by DHS, payments were sent to Kamna's post office box and the funds were ultimately deposited into her bank account.

The contract agency, in cooperation with DHS, has since implemented new procedures to safeguard the Medicaid claim process from future abuses.

Assistant Attorney General Sheen Y. Wu is handling the case through the Tillamook County District Attorney's Office.