Pamela M. Van Drie, Medicaid & Payroll Tax Fraud, Missouri 2019

Marshfield woman Pamela M. Van Drie, 59, was sentenced to four years and nine months in federal prison without parole for her role in a $1 million Medicaid and payroll tax fraud scheme. The scheme involved her dental clinics, All About Smiles, LLC, and PL Family Management Company, LLC, which managed the staff for those clinics.

Pamela M. Van Drie, along with her husband Lorin G. Van Drie, 60, was convicted at trial on February 20, 2019, of all 40 counts contained in a federal indictment. The indictment charged them with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the government by failing to pay over payroll taxes.

The scheme involved two fraud schemes. The first scheme involved billing Medicaid for speech aid prosthetics that were not provided to Medicaid beneficiaries. The second scheme involved billing Medicaid for dentures and other dental services for beneficiaries who were ineligible to receive such services because the services were not medically necessary.

Between October 6, 2010, and August 19, 2015, Pamela M. Van Drie submitted and received payment for approximately 241 claims submitted for speech aid prostheses. The total amount billed to Medicaid was approximately $165,700. In the second scheme, Pamela M. Van Drie and Dr. James R. Dye, a dentist at the clinics, arranged for All About Smiles to provide dentures and other dental services to adults who did not qualify for Medicaid reimbursement. They submitted claims to Medicaid for those dentures and other dental services, knowing that Medicaid’s requirements were not met.

Pamela M. Van Drie also participated in a conspiracy to defraud the government by failing to pay over to the IRS payroll taxes from January 31, 2013, to January 31, 2015. The Van Dries failed to pay over to the IRS approximately $194,751 in payroll taxes.

As a result of the scheme, Pamela M. Van Drie was ordered to pay $1,139,794 in restitution. The court also ordered her to pay $194,751 in back payroll taxes.

The sentencing occurred on October 9, 2019, in U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool’s court in Springfield, Missouri.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/former-dental-clinic-owner-sentenced-1-million-health-care-payroll-tax-fraud