According to the Arizona Attorney General, Hacienda Healthcare’s former executives are being indicted for fraud. The Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) had a contract with Hacienda that paid $1,100 per patient, per day. If Hacienda was to receive an overpayment, they were to reimburse the (DDD). The chief executive officer, William Timmons, and the chief financial officer, Joseph O’Malley, are both being charged with fraudulent schemes and artifices as well as illegally conducting an enterprise. They misallocated funds from the DDD by manipulating costs to avoid repayments of state funds. This was done by inflating salaries and bonuses. Timmons and O’Malley also used the money to pay for a large sum of costs at Hacienda’s other facilities without any reimbursement. They ended up getting millions of dollars of overpayment by the state. “This settlement provides a pathway for Arizona to recover funds misused for years by Hacienda,” says Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Hacienda is a healthcare facility and a certified nonprofit. It is supposed to do good, yet it stole millions of dollars from Arizona taxpayers and still did not give quality care to its patients. The same healthcare facility was in the news after a family’s daughter was raped and impregnated by one of the staff members. “She was in a vegetative state on a ventilator with no way to communicate.” According to the lawsuit she “was repeatedly sexually assaulted.” The other healthcare employees there claim they had no idea she was pregnant. It was looked into after a 911 call from the facility and it is believed that she was sexually abused on many accounts.
Many people who are in assisted living facilities cannot speak for themselves which leaves them vulnerable to being easily taken advantage of. The same goes for nursing homes. The people living in these facilities are prone to having mental disabilities as well as health issues. The RightCare Foundation’s goal is to save lives and promote best practice care. We strive for change so that people can receive great care and still have their end of life wishes honored. We strive for a world that is responsible and accountable to ensure that caregivers are providing excellent care.