Grantham man, 72, gets home detention, $1M fine in medicaid fraud case

CONCORD - The Attorney General's Office announced that a Grantham man pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Tuesday on two counts of class B felony Medicaid fraud.

Richpard Wennerberg, 72, is the owner of Alternative Care @ Home, LLC, a company licensed to provide in-home personal care services to Medicaid beneficiaries.

According to court documents, between January 2015 and December 2018 Wennerberg submitted claims for reimbursement for in-home, personal care services that were never actually provided, and which included periods when Alternative Care's clients were not at home, but instead were in hospitals or nursing homes.

Additionally, from as early as December 2015, Wennerberg billed Medicaid up to the maximum hours allowed under certain clients' service authorizations, knowing that his employees did not actually provide care for all of those hours, and would use the difference to reimburse some caregivers for mileage.

The Merrimack County Superior Court sentenced Wennerberg to serve twelve months in the House of Corrections with a recommendation for administrative home confinement and ordered Wennerberg to pay $1,000,000 in restitution. Wennerberg also entered a plea of guilty to a third charge of Medicaid fraud against his company, which excludes Alternative Care @ Home, LLC from future participation in federal health care programs.