A 55-year-old Waco clinical psychologist was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday in an Austin federal court after pleading guilty to scamming Medicaid out of more than $664,215 by submitting false claims.

Mercy Chieza, a native of Zimbab- we and a resident of Hewitt, also was ordered by Senior U.S. District Judge James R. Nowlin to reimburse the Texas Medicaid Program, said Michael Lemoine, a special agent with the criminal investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service.

Chieza also faces losing her professional license, and deportation after her sentence is complete.

Chieza, who earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1994 from Baylor University, owned and operated Chieza Psychological Services, 6515 Sanger Ave. Suite 2, according to Texas Online, which is operated by the state.

She specialized in school psychology, the Web site states.

Calls placed Thursday to Chieza’s attorney, Waco-based David Deaconson, and to Chieza’s office were not returned.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Devlin prosecuted the case.

Chieza pleaded guilty in December 2009 to federal charges of health care fraud and money laundering. She was sentenced in Austin because it is home to the Texas Medicaid Program office, Lemoine said.

According to federal court documents, from at least January 1999 to October 2007, Chieza admitted to submitting multiple fraudulent billings, filing claims for services performed by someone else and filing claims for services not performed at all.

The documents state she billed for services that totaled more than 24 hours in a day, and for services she submitted to the health care benefit program for reimbursement while she was away from her practice. The documents said she also double-billed for services.

In eight years, Chieza submitted claims to Medicaid for 25 or more hours per day on at least 16 separate days, and for 16 or more hours a day on at least 152 days, documents state.

Chieza also would bill Medicaid for a patient session before even seeing the patient, or bill for a session with someone who was no longer a patient, the documents state.

Chieza would use a copy of a patient record and alter it to falsely reflect another patient’s health, the records state.

She also admitted to submitting claims to Medicaid through electronic billing. Payments were deposited directly into her bank account.

Lemoine said the IRS recently has been seeing more cases of Medicaid fraud.

“It is such a costly crime,” he said, adding that various federal fraud units are set up to investigate these crimes.

The Texas Medicaid Program is a health care benefit program financed by federal and state governments that fund certain health care services to the indigent and their children who qualify under certain poverty guidelines.

Health care providers are reimbursed by Medicaid for actual time spent with patients, rounded to the nearest hour.

The case was investigated by the FBI, IRS criminal investigations and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

equinn@wacotrib.com

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