(CHICAGO) The head of a home health care company based in northwest suburban Schaumburg was convicted by a federal jury Friday night of more than 20 counts of Medicare fraud.
Diana Jocelyn Gumila, 46, of Streamwood was convicted after a two-week trial of 21 counts of health care fraud and three counts of making false statements in a health care matter, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Gumila was the manager of Suburban Home Physicians, which did business as Doctor at Home, according to federal prosecutors. She directed employees to perform in-home visits with patients who were physically capable of leaving their homes and were not in need of in-home treatment. She also inflated the costs incurred by Medicare by directly employees to bill the treatment at the most elevated levels, even though the visits were typically routine.
In a secret recording played at Gumila’s trial, she can be heard telling a new doctor to “paint the picture” of patients so as to make them appear confined to their homes, according to prosecutors. An email from Gumila presented to the jury also referred to a physician who did not read orders before signing them as “the type of doctor we need [b]ecause he will just do what we tell him to do,” according to the statement.
Two other defendants, Chicago physician Alan Newman and nurse James Ademiju, were previously convicted in the federal investigation into Doctor at Home, according to the statement.
Gumila is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Charles P. Kocoras on July 26. Each count of federal health care fraud is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and each false statement count carries up to a five-year sentence.
