Attorney General Jackley Announces Pierre Woman Pleads Guilty to Defrauding South Dakota Medicaid Program
PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announces that a Pierre woman has pleaded guilty to one felony count of Grand Theft after earlier being charged with defrauding the South Dakota Medicaid Program of more than $588,000 in federal and state funds.
Sharon Laraye Monson, 49, entered the guilty plea Thursday in Hughes County Circuit Court. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison when sentenced Aug. 25. As part of a plea agreement, she has agreed to pay $500,000 in restitution to the South Dakota Department of Social Services.
Monson stole the money when she was the owner of At Home Nursing in Pierre. The charges occurred from May 1, 2018 to Jan. 1, 2024.
The case was investigated and prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud, Abuse and Neglect Services Unit.
This release is provided in compliance with the federal Stevens Amendment: The South Dakota Medicaid Fraud Control Unit receives 75% of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling approximately $1,033,972 for Federal Fiscal Year 2026. The remaining 25%, totaling approximately $334,656 for Federal Fiscal Year 2026, was funded by the State of South Dakota.
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I am curious as to what the fraud was structured on. Services charged but not rendered?
There would be a lot more fraud uncovered if the Dept of Health did their facility inspections in the morning instead of showing up in the late afternoons. Their first stop in every facility could be the physical therapy room to see what is going on there. If anything. Usually there isn’t anything going on in those rooms.
At one facility, the therapist pushed the wheelchairs into the therapy room, parked the residents in there, went outside to smoke, then pushed the wheelchairs to the diningroom for breakfast. At another facility I discovered the therapist was charting remarkable daily progress in her notes, which continued for three days after the resident died.
You would think state health department inspectors would notice that so many residents, admitted for restorative therapy, lose function in only a few weeks. But they don’t. The inspectors don’t want to work that early in the morning; so their “surprise” inspections begin in the late afternoon or early evenings. This gives the staff plenty of time to prepare for the main inspection the next day, as in, call in extra staff to do what they are supposed to be doing.
There’s lots of opportunities for fraud in the long-term care industry, but physical therapy is the biggest scam of all. Our tax dollars at work.
Instead of posting this here – I’d encourage you to inform the DOH which facility you are talking about re the physical therapy room. If it’s not in SD, whistleblow at the fed level. Seriously. It sounds like you are a doctor or traveling nurse at these facilities, if you are able to see the charts post-mortem. The people who see this or have access to this, are the only people that can fix it.
I retired years ago. And I did report stuff to the DOH.
Useless. They “investigate,” the administrators say “I’ll take care of it,” and that’s the end of it. Nothing ever changed.
There was one employee who was so awful, the facility social worker told us the DOH had given the administrator an actual deadline date to “do something” about her. We thought “finally!” and waited. The deadline came and went. Absolutely nothing changed. Did the DOH follow up?
Another complaint I made about some really egregious behavior got a response from the DOH that I should discuss it with my supervisor. Like I had not already tried that. We had all filed the incident reports. They never did anything.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the DOH. I know the inspectors are OLD. One was going to follow me on a med pass and she couldn’t keep up ; she couldn’t walk fast enough and gave up.
They are probably just drawing paychecks and ignoring problems
I thought it was the Somalians?