Macon rehab facility owner to pay $192K, serve year in prison for falsifying records
The owner of a Macon rehab facility who admitted to altering patient records during a fraud investigation in 2019 was ordered to pay nearly $192,000 to various medical providers and serve a year and a day in prison.
Brenda Hicks, the owner of Middle Georgia Family Rehab, was present at Macon’s federal courthouse Thursday for sentencing after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice in front of Judge Marc Treadwell. Dozens of affiliates, clients and more each gave a brief testimony supporting Hicks with the hopes Treadwell would reduce her sentence.
The rehab center was accused of a fraud scheme, which was under investigation by authorities. Hicks received a request to look into certain patient records from investigators for the U.S. Attorney’s Office — records she told her staff that she did not have, according to her plea agreement with prosecutors. She told her staff she received an audit and instructed them to pull the requested files.
If any of the requested files appeared blank or missing, Lisa Deal, who is also part of this criminal case, and another staff member were instructed to make them up by copying the details of another file and pasting them onto the blank one. Deal testified at the sentencing hearing, saying that she believed that what Hicks instructed her and the other staff member to do was legal, especially after she inquired about its legality to Hicks directly and was told that it was.
Deal further explained that out of all of the documents requested from investigators, about 15% to 20% of those documents missed information, saying that sometimes, Hicks’ therapists were lazy and must have turned the documents in without writing notes or signing the document.
While Deal helped to forge the documents for Hicks, the other staff member quit after expressing that what they were doing was illegal, according to Hicks’ plea agreement.
Deal is currently part of a year-long diversion program with prosecutors that, once she completes it, will dismiss the case against her.
An ‘extraordinary collection of folks’ testify in Hicks’ defense
Hicks’ lawyer, Brian Rafferty, attempted to get a lesser sentence for the rehab owner by arguing that the government “did not meet the burden of proof,” but Treadwell disagreed. However, Rafferty brought forward an “extraordinary collection of folks” that received services from Middle Georgia Family Rehab to testify in Hicks’ defense.
Among them were a leader of a veterans support group, parents of fostered children, a former officer but current employee in a juvenile detention center, a Macon reverend, the mayor of Reynolds, and Hicks’ husband. They testified to how Hicks “was a good, considerate person” that served clients for free and without insurance.
Hicks was commended as a woman who thought of others and provided healthcare to a struggling community. Hicks herself mentioned how her passion was to take care of children and the elderly and that, ultimately, she “did not mean to do any harm.”
“I throw myself at the mercy of the court,” said Hicks.
Rafferty added that forging the documents for the government “does not define her as a person,” further adding that Hicks is now a “broken woman and a convicted felon.”
But prosecutors argued that a reason she did not charge clients may be due to the fact that she falsified some of the documents. Further, prosecutors argued that Hicks did not even qualify to treat most of the elderly and children she treated and could have given them more appropriate treatment.
“We will never know what the truthful documents are and we never will,” prosecutors told Treadwell.
Before the judge gave his sentence, he let Hicks know that he acknowledged the work she put in toward an underserved community, but “all of the good that you have done does not change the fact that there has been substantial wrongdoing.”
Hicks was supposed to be sentenced to somewhere between 15 and 21 months in prison, according to recommended guidelines, but Treadwell sentenced her to one year and one day in prison followed by three years of supervised release. According to her plea agreement with prosecutors, she was also ordered to pay in restitution:
$108,335.87 to TRICARE
$6,780.38 to Medicare
$26,694.92 to Blue Cross Blue Shield
$31,158.22 to Medicaid, and
$18,675.81 to Veterans Affairs.
The total of what she has to pay in restitution is $191,645.20. Hicks surrendered in court and hugged her crying supporters outside of Treadwell’s courtroom.
