Former WellCare execs guilty of fraud

Tools

Two former chief executives of WellCare Health Plans have been found guilty of fraud. A jury convicted Wellcare's ex-CEO Todd Farha and former chief financial officer Paul Behrens of two counts of healthcare fraud, Bloomberg reported. The former execs were originally charged in 2011 with defrauding Florida's Medicaid program and making false, fraudulent statements on expenses for behavioral health services. Instead of making refunds to its members after the Florida-based insurer failed to spend at least 80 percent of Medicaid funds for mental healthcare directly on patients, the former WellCare employees set up a unit to hide the money from regulators and falsified information on provider payments. After the jury convicted the former CEO and CFO, WellCare released a statement saying the insurer "made significant changes to the governance of our company to help ensure that this never happens again." Article