A former case manager at Care Hawaii has filed suit against the mental health care provider, claiming she was wrongfully terminated after reporting other case managers had illegally billed the state and private health insurance companies for work they didn’t do.
The civil lawsuit was filed Oct. 31 in Hilo Circuit Court by attorney Ted Hong on behalf of Anna Liza O. Ha and seeks unspecified general, special, compensatory and punitive damages. The filing also seeks back salary and benefits with interest and attorney’s fees. The suit claims Ha was fired for blowing the whistle on a co-worker who was later promoted over her to a supervisory position, and that Care Hawaii had engaged in civil racketeering for using “money that was unlawfully gained to operate their enterprise,” according to Hong.
Ha was employed by the private mental health care company from July 27, 2009, until her termination Sept. 17, 2012, the suit states.
According to the filing, in June 2012, Ha conducted intake interviews for two new clients and entered the information on Care Hawaii’s billing database for approval and payment by the state and private insurers. In July 2012, she allegedly noticed in the database that two other case managers, identified in the suit by initials “HC” and “DW,” also logged that they had conducted intake interviews for the same two clients. The suit states case managers are “prohibited from conducting duplicate intakes and submitting billable units for the same intakes.”
“The billings that were submitted by the other employees were false because they never interviewed or talked to these individuals,” Hong said.
An investigation confirmed the two case managers “had billed for work that was not performed.” One of them was terminated, the suit states. The other was promoted to team leader, a position for which Ha was also considered.
The suit states Ha was fired after “defendant resurrected a minor incident involving (Ha’s) inadvertent bump” of HC while passing through a narrow hallway and that “other minor incidents as far back as 2011” were also resurrected to justify Ha’s termination.
Care Hawaii has been served with the lawsuit and in its response, the company’s Honolulu attorney, Paul Saito, wrote that Care Hawaii “denies all allegations” by Ha.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.