Danelle Charf, Health Care Fraud, Nebraska 2023

A Neligh woman has been sentenced to prison for her role in a scheme to defraud the government out of millions of dollars in health care benefits.

Danelle Charf, 49, was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 20, 2023, for making a false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement in connection with health care services. Chief Judge Robert F. Rossiter handed down the sentence.

There is no parole in the federal system, so Charf will spend the full two months behind bars. After her release, she will begin a three-year term of supervised release.

Charf was also ordered to pay $573,337.53 in restitution to Medicare and Medicaid, the government agencies that were victimized by her scheme.

The scheme involved billing for name-brand medications when generic versions were actually dispensed at Wanek Pharmacy in Neligh and Tilden Pharmacy in Tilden, Nebraska, two pharmacies that Charf previously owned. Investigators found that Charf had also submitted claims for prescriptions that were never filled by customers.

Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who worked at the pharmacies corroborated the scheme, reporting that Charf was responsible for adjusting orders from suppliers so that brands were commonly unavailable. The investigators then chose some beneficiaries at random to interview and located beneficiaries who had been prescribed a name brand medication but were dispensed a generic. Investigators were able to photograph the medications with name brand prescription labels placed on generic medications.

An invoice review was done, comparing all of the claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid by Wanek and Tilden Pharmacies to how much of the same drugs were ordered by the pharmacies during the same time period. Even excluding claims to private insurance companies, the reconciliation showed that Wanek did not have adequate purchases to support their claims for 1,032 of the 3,676 drugs reviewed, resulting in a loss of $369,837.38. Tilden did not have adequate purchases to support their claims for 612 of 1,737 drugs reviewed, resulting in a loss of $203,500.15.

The case was investigated by the HHS Office of Inspector General and the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office.

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