MINNEAPOLIS – When talking about the home health care industry, Shukri Adan once said, “It’s money — greed and money. There’s a lot of money involved here, millions of dollars.” In 2007, Adan came to the FOX 9 Investigators with a remarkable story containing the kind of intrigue you just don’t hear very often — accusing competitors of bribery.

In the turf battle over millions of tax dollars, Adan alleged there was “extreme corruption” in the home health care industry. Adan runs a company called Universal Home Health Care, which caters to low income people who need help taking care of themselves by providing personal care assistants, or PCA’s, to do household chores and other tasks.

Public money from Medicaid picks up the tab. This year, PCA care in Minnesota will cost nearly $580 million. Adan said, “We then make ten to twenty percent profit.” When Adan did her interview in 2007, she claimed other PCA companies were offering bribes and kickbacks to get her clients to go to them. “Five hundred, a thousand dollars.” she said.

She also claimed some of her competitors created bogus accounts and billed the state thousands for work that was never provided. Adan is well-connected. She’s done work for the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, presented a report to the City Council about Somali youth and was also chosen to be on Mayor R.T. Rybak’s advisory committee when he was in the process of choosing a new police chief. Adan’s story about corruption in home health care seemed credible, but we shelved her interview until we could find out more. Now, four years later, Adan’s company is the subject of a federal investigation.

The FBI confirmed it recently searched the company’s Golden Valley office as part of a Medicaid fraud case. The FOX 9 Investigators tried repeatedly to get Adan to comment but she has not responded. Through public records, we’ve been able to piece together a glimpse of what the company’s been doing that might warrant a federal investigation. Last fall, the state notified the company that it was breaking the law by providing in home re-habilitation services without a license. Earlier in 2010, Ahmed Igge, the company’s former administrator, was charged with felony theft by swindle after he was accused of stealing $175,000 from the company. The charges were later dropped. Igge told the FOX 9 investigators that he was set up and claimed one of the reasons he left Universal Home Health Care was “because of all the illegal activities they were doing.” He said he also alerted the FBI.

There’s lots of money at play here. We found, since 2006, this company has received more than ten million dollars worth of PCA re-imbursement from the state. The demand for PCA home care has exploded over the last decade in part because of an aging population that wants alternatives to nursing homes. Ben Wogsland, of the Minnesota Attorney Generals office, said, “With the expansion of that program, there’s more room … for fraud.” Minnesota now has a special task force assigned to cracking down on PCA fraud. Just last week, the attorney general charged a Brooklyn Park company, accusing it of ripping off nearly $1 million in PCA funds. The company allegedly did things like put in time cards for a care assistant who no longer worked there, officials said.

Wogsland elaborated, “They had put in claims that she was working 20 hours per day for 62 days straight.” Last year, the state opened more than 750 Medicaid fraud investigations and nearly a quarter of them involved PCA services. When Adan first spoke with the FOX 9 Investigators in 2007, she was accusing her PCA competitors of fraud, claiming some of them were secretly funneling Medicaid money back to Somalia.

“They’re interested in getting political power,” she said. “By investing back home, they can achieve that.” FOX 9 Investigators were not able to verify Adan’s claims, but the FBI, the Minnesota Attorney General and the Minneapolis police now have a keen interest in her company — enough to get a search warrant and raid its headquarters.

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FOX 9

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