(November 22, 2013) Jackson, TN –Rebecca Christain, 57, of Mountain Home, AR, pleaded
guilty on November 20, 2013, to a two-count federal information charging her with one count
of health care fraud and one count of money laundering in relation to a Medicare fraud scheme,
announced U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III.
According to the facts alleged in the information and statements made during her guilty plea,
Christain was the owner of Sleep Analysts, Inc. and a subsidiary company, Pulmonary Solutions.
Pulmonary Solutions had offices in Michie, TN; Brownsville, TN; Savannah, TN; Waynesboro,
TN; and Jackson, TN, and was in the business of providing respiratory therapy services to
Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare program patients.
From October 2008 to December 2009, Christain devised a scheme to defraud the Medicare
program by hiring unlicensed individuals to perform services that were billed to Medicare as
respiratory therapy services, and by instructing her staff to falsify records setting forth the
amount of time during which services were provided. She also instructed employees to designate
certain services for billing under physical therapy codes, which resulted in payments
approximately double those of respiratory codes, and instructed employees to designate certain
services to be double or triple billed using both physical therapy and respiratory therapy codes,
even though Pulmonary Solutions never employed any physical therapists.
In total, Christain caused fraudulent claims in excess of $1,000,000 to be paid by Medicare and
Medicaid for fraudulently billed respiratory therapy services. Christain is scheduled to be
sentenced on February 20, 2014, in Jackson, TN, before U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen.
This investigation was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of
Inspector General; IRS-Criminal Investigation; the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Fabian represented the
government.
