Staff Reports
This week a Maryland man, Said Nassor, pleaded guilty in federal court for billing D.C. Medicaid for mental‑health telehealth sessions that never happened or were wildly inflated. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, led by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, says the scheme cost Medicaid more than $250,000 and reads like a how‑to guide for telehealth fraud. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan accepted the plea, and prosecutors say the evidence includes phone records and even an undercover FBI test.
What prosecutors say happened
According to the U.S. Attorney and investigators, Nassor was a community support worker who and others were told to bill the maximum units allowed for every consumer, whether the work was done or not. Court filings show he logged more than 701 hours of telehealth services for six patients between mid‑2022 and mid‑2023, while phone records show roughly 172 minutes of actual calls. Prosecutors also say Nassor created and billed three telehealth encounters for an undercover FBI employee that never occurred. The FBI Washington Field Office and the D.C. Office of Inspector General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit handled the probe, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Facci is prosecuting the case.
Scope and legal stakes in telehealth fraud
This guilty plea is not an isolated embarrassment — it fits a national pattern of telehealth and Medicaid abuse that ballooned after pandemic billing flexibilities. The charge, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, carries serious penalties under federal law (statutory exposure consistent with health‑care fraud, with sentencing to follow under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines). For taxpayers, the math is simple: fake therapy sessions drain funds meant for the needy. For patients, it can mean poorer care when dollars get siphoned off by fraudsters instead of used for real treatment.
Fixes conservatives should demand now
Government should act like it cares about the money it spends. That means tougher oversight, more data‑driven audits, and faster criminal referrals when billing patterns scream fraud. It also means holding companies and supervisors accountable if they run billing factories that coach workers to “shave a few minutes” off calls to make fake encounters look real. Restore sensible limits to telehealth billing where needed, require verifiable call logs, and fast‑track clawbacks when audits find nonsense claims. If someone can bill 701 hours for three real hours, maybe we should stop trusting a spreadsheet and start enforcing real consequences.
Bottom line
Nassor’s guilty plea is a win for enforcement and for taxpayers, but it’s a small one. The bigger problem is a system that lets bad actors turn telehealth into a cash machine. Prosecutors did their job — now regulators and lawmakers must finish it. Otherwise, Medicaid will keep bleeding dollars while real patients lose out, and fraudsters will treat the safety net like a personal ATM. That’s not justice. It’s rotten policy.
