Former hospice care owner sentenced to 72 months in prison on health care fraud charges

A former Broussard resident has been sentenced to 72 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit health care fraud, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Kristal Clover-Wing, 51, also was ordered to pay more than $3.6 million in restitution.

Glover-Wing, who now lives in California, was convicted by a federal jury in April 2023 following a nearly four-week trial, the release said. Glover-Wing was the owner of Angel Care Hospice, which purported to provide hospice services in Lafayette Parish and other parishes in the Western District of Louisiana.

Through evidence presented at trial, jurors learned that from approximately 2009 through 2017, more than 24 patients were placed on hospice by Angel Care without meeting the criteria required by Medicare, the release said.

During the time period that the patients were on hospice and under the care and supervision of Angel Care, none of them had been diagnosed with a terminal condition. In fact, many of the patients themselves, who are still alive and thriving many years later, as well as family members of other patients, testified that they never knew that they had been placed on hospice.

One of the patients testified that Medicare refused to cover a procedure he needed to have because, unbeknownst to him, he was listed as a hospice patient, the release stated. Many of these patients thought they were receiving some type of home health or free services, rather than being placed on hospice.

Testimony revealed that while on hospice care, many of the patients were living normal lives. Although most of them did have medical conditions, none had been diagnosed as having a terminal condition. Evidence was introduced proving that there were patients who had been on hospice for more than five years and were still alive at the time of trial.

“As federal prosecutors, we must protect the taxpayer dollar by taking cases of Medicare fraud seriously due to the overwhelming number of Americans that rely on such programs to literally survive,” said U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown. “The defendant in this case took advantage of elderly patients for the benefit of her company as opposed to her clients. We believe this is a fair sentence and we will continue to prosecute cases of fraud and corruption by those who seek to unjustly enrich themselves to the detriment of the elderly and federal government.”

The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kelly P. Uebinger, Danny Siefker, and Lauren L. Gardner.

Special Agent in Charge Jason E. Meadows of the HHS Office of Inspector General called the sentence “an affirmation of our commitment to protect the integrity of our nation’s health insurance programs.”

“HHS-OIG will continue to work closely with our federal law enforcement partners and bring to justice bad actors who defraud the Medicare program,” he said.