FortBendNow.com

A Fresno man has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to his part in what the Texas Attorney General’s Office said was a nearly $600,000 Medicaid scam.

Licensed professional counselor Aaron Renaldo Binder, 37, was arrested by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in July 2006, and indicted by a Harris County grand jury for first-degree felony theft for what law enforcement officials said was more than $596,000 in fraudulent billings to Medicaid and Medicare from two Houston counseling centers in which Binder was part owner.

According to the AG’s Office, Rinder was prosecuted for “masterminding” the billing scam, and received reimbursements for mental health counseling sessions “that were either never performed or were falsely reported through his Houston businesses, Solutions To Changing Lives and Solutions 2 Changing Lives.”

“With this guilty plea and sentence, the defendant admits to illegally billing the taxpayers for counseling services that were never rendered,” Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement issued Friday. “We are grateful to Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal Jr. for his assistance in this case and his commitment to Medicaid fraud prosecutions.”

From March 2002 to February 2004, Binder collected fraudulent reimbursements from Medicaid totaling almost $500,000, Abbott’s office said. During another period, from February 2004 to May 2004, Binder’s businesses received more than $99,000 in reimbursements that were tied to fraudulent billings.

Binder hired licensed professional counselors to work at the businesses, which offered behavioral and mental health counseling services that were eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. He and his associates advertised these services at Houston public schools and apartment complexes, according to the statement from the attorney general.

Potential clients who responded to the advertisements were asked for their Medicaid account numbers. Then, their numbers were billed for counseling services that never occurred, Abbott’s office said. In other instances, the counselors submitted claims that illegally inflated the amount of time spent with clients.