Clinic owner facing Medicaid-fraud case

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of the owner of a children’s therapy clinic in Bentonville on felony charges of Medicaid fraud, court records show.

Anthony Christopher, 32, is listed in an investigator’s affidavit as the owner of Absolute Pediatric Therapy, which is described as a provider of mental-health services and speech, occupational and physical therapy to young children.

Court records show that the clinic is accused of billing the state Medicaid program for at least $38,012 for services that were not provided or that were medically unnecessary from Aug. 1, 2017, to Feb. 7, 2019.

Christopher also is accused of felony nonfinancial identity fraud over records that were submitted to the Medicaid program.

Pulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber issued the warrant Feb. 5.

The warrant had not been served as of Wednesday afternoon, said Rebecca Jeffrey, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office.

A phone message and a message sent through Absolute Pediatric Therapy’s website weren’t returned Wednesday. An attorney who represented Christoper in a lawsuit against a former clinic employee also didn’t return messages seeking comment.

According to the affidavit by Terry Rolfe, an investigator with the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the clinic submitted claims to the Medicaid program for services that therapists told Rolfe they did not provide.

The clinic also billed for psychotherapy by a doctor who said he does not provide psychotherapy and has never worked as a therapist for the clinic, Rolfe said in the affidavit.

The clinic also back-dated referrals from doctors, making it appear that the referrals had been signed before the clinic began providing services, and altered a physician’s referral to add services the physician had not ordered, the investigator said.

In the affidavit, Rolfe also described Christopher as director of New Beginning Children’s Home, which the investigator described as an emergency long-term residence for foster children.

Rolfe described Absolute Pediatric Therapy as the “exclusive therapy provider” to New Beginning.

Two doctors offices that evaluated children from New Beginning expressed concerns about the referrals from Christopher’s clinic, Rolfe said.

Ken Ferguson, the founder and director of the Gravette foster care organization now known as New Beginning Youth Homes, said in a phone interview Wednesday that Christopher worked for his organization for three or four years as an administrator but was not the director.

He said he was not aware of Christopher having a business connection to Absolute Pediatric Therapy while employed by New Beginning, and that Absolute Pediatric Therapy was not the only provider New Beginning used. Christopher resigned from New Beginning in 2018, he said.

He added that New Beginning stopped working with minors early last year and now provides housing only for young people who age out of the foster-care system.

Rolfe said in the affidavit that concerns about Absolute Pediatric Therapy’s billing were reported by an investigator with Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and former staff members of the clinic.

Christopher sued one former employee, LaDonna Humphrey, in Benton County Circuit Court in 2018, saying she had breached a confidentiality agreement and spread false information about the clinic.

Circuit Judge Xollie Duncan ruled in Christopher’s favor last year after finding Humphrey had disobeyed court orders, destroyed evidence and falsely claimed that her Facebook and email accounts had been hacked.

She ordered Humphrey to pay Christopher more than $3.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys fees and to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court.

Humphrey has appealed Duncan’s ruling against her to the Arkansas Court of Appeals.