Justice For Natives

09/24/2026

They billed the state for treating people who were sitting in jail.

Everything we've posted this month happened years ago. This happened on September 2nd.

That's the day AHCCCS, Arizona's Medicaid agency, cut off payments to two Phoenix behavioral health clinics under the same owner and referred both to the Attorney General. FOX 10 got the suspension notices last week. Here is what the state says it found, in the state's own words.

Billing for members who were incarcerated at the time of the "treatment."

"Impossible hours." More treatment billed in a day than there are hours in a day.

The same clients billed at both clinics, at the same time.

Claims that overlapped with treatment those same people were supposedly getting at other outpatient facilities.

Non-Native members switched onto the American Indian Health Plan without authorization, the plan that pays more and asks fewer questions.

And patient brokering: paying for people.

Between the two clinics, about $3.97 million billed since 2022.

Nobody has been charged. These are the reasons the state gave for stopping the checks, and the owner has the right to respond. But read that list again. Jail records are public. Hours in a day are not a mystery. Two clinics billing one person at the same moment is a computer check.

Three years after the state said it fixed this, a clinic was billing for people in jail, and it took until this month to turn off the money.

The reforms are catching people. They are catching them late, after the money is gone, and after the people in the homes are too.

The image below is a recreation to illustrate the story, not a photo of any real jail or person. Article linked in the comments.

09/23/2026

She didn't just own a clinic. She owned a hospital.

Rita Anagho was a nurse practitioner. Between May 2022 and March 2023 her Phoenix clinic, Tusa Integrated Clinic, billed Arizona Medicaid more than $69 million for addiction treatment for Native people. The state paid about $54.9 million.

Last week a federal judge sentenced her to 14 years in prison. That is the longest sentence in the entire Arizona sober living scandal so far.

And when the government went to take back what the money bought, the list included an entire hospital building in Florence, Arizona. Not a clinic. A hospital. Bought with money the state paid for treatment that never happened.

Picture that from the other side.

You are a relative from the reservation who got into a van because someone promised you help. You were dropped at a house that turned out to be unlicensed. You were told to switch your health plan. You were driven to a clinic where, according to prosecutors, the treatment notes were being written for sessions that never occurred. Every day you were there, your name was on an invoice.

Meanwhile the person collecting those invoices was buying a hospital.

Prosecutors say she chose Native patients on purpose, because the American Indian Health Program paid higher rates. They say she paid sober living home owners for referrals. They say that when the subpoena arrived, she told former employees to make up medical records.

She pleaded guilty. The 'hospital', a six-bedroom house in Queen Creek, and $9.5 million across seven bank accounts have all been seized. She owes $54.9 million in restitution.

The Attorney General still has about 200 cases open. This was one.

Nobody has been sentenced yet for what happened to the people in the van.

The image below is a recreation to illustrate the story, not a photo of the actual building or any real person. Article linked in the comments.

09/22/2026

Why Native people? People ask us this every day. Here's the answer.

Arizona's Medicaid program has two kinds of coverage.

Most people are in a managed care plan. A private insurance company sits between the clinic and the state. It checks the claims, asks questions, and says no when something looks wrong.

Native Americans can choose a different option called the American Indian Health Program. It was built so tribal members could see any provider without a middleman. The state pays the clinic directly. Fewer approvals. Faster payment. Higher rates for some services.

That was the door.

A clinic that wanted to bill for treatment nobody received needed patients whose claims wouldn't get questioned. The American Indian Health Program was the plan with the fewest questions, so that's who they went looking for. Federal prosecutors said it out loud last week when they sentenced a nurse practitioner to 14 years: she targeted that program on purpose because it paid more.

And when they ran out of Native patients, some clinics started making them.

Earlier this month, Arizona suspended two Phoenix clinics. One of the reasons on the state's list: switching people who were not Native onto the American Indian Health Program without authorization, so the clinic could bill at the higher rate. Another clinic, in a case that's already ended in prison time, pressured members to switch plans and threatened to put them out of their sober living home if they refused.

Think about what that means. The plan was created for Native people. It became the reason recruiters drove to reservations, and then the reason non-Native people were signed up as if they were.

None of this was hidden. It was on the forms. The state paid the forms.

The people whose names were on those forms are the ones still missing.

The image below is a recreation to illustrate the story, not a photo of any real clinic, patient, or document. Article linked in the comments.

09/21/2026

Ever wonder why the vans kept coming?

Last week a federal judge answered that question. Fourteen years in prison for a San Tan Valley nurse practitioner who billed Arizona's Medicaid program $69 million in ten months and, according to the Justice Department, paid sober living home operators kickbacks for every patient they sent her.

Read that again. The homes weren't just housing people. They were selling them.

Here's the pipeline, straight from the government's own case:

A van picks up a relative on a reservation, at a bus stop, outside a flea market. The promise is a free program in Phoenix.

The van drops them at a house. The house keeps them just long enough to send them to a clinic.

The clinic bills the state. In this case, more than $69 million between May 2022 and March 2023, all under the American Indian Health Program, because prosecutors say she picked it on purpose for the higher reimbursement rates.

The clinic pays the house for the referral. The house goes and finds more people.

Everyone in that loop got paid. The person in the van got a bed, a sign-in sheet, and a ride to the next house when the money stopped.

Prosecutors say she falsified medical records, and when the subpoena came, told employees to create fake documentation. She pleaded guilty. The state paid about $54.9 million of what she billed. She was ordered to pay every dollar of it back, and the government has already seized $9.5 million from her accounts and around $7 million in property.

This is the longest sentence anyone has received in the sober living scandal. It is for the money.

No one has been sentenced for what happened to the people in the vans.

The image below is a recreation. It is not a photo of any real vehicle, persons, or clinic connected to the case.

Article in the comments.

09/17/2026

Same sunset. Same city. Same money.

On the left is what federal prosecutors say $33 million in Medicaid billing bought in one year: houses, a Rolls Royce, investment accounts. On the right is what that billing was for. A house like this one, on a street like this one, where relatives were dropped off with a promise of treatment and picked up again when the payments stopped.

Yesterday we posted the case. Today, the math.

According to the indictment, one Phoenix company billed AHCCCS more than $33 million between May 2022 and May 2023, and was paid about $19.7 million of it. That's $2.75 million a month. About $90,000 a day. Roughly $63 every minute, for a year.

A Rolls Royce Cullinan starts around $400,000. At that billing rate, it's paid for by Thursday.

The state approved the provider. The state paid the claims. Nobody drove out to the right side of this picture to see if anyone was getting treatment.

And this is one company. Arizona has acknowledged $2.8 billion in fraudulent billing across the sober living scheme. That's the left side of this photo, about 85 times over.

Every dollar was billed under a real person's name. Some of those people are still missing.

These are allegations. The man charged is presumed innocent and will have his day in court. The numbers are the government's own.

This image is a recreation, built to show the two sides of the same dollar. It is not a photo of anyone's actual home, vehicle, or facility.

Share this so people understand what "Medicaid fraud" looks like from both sides of the street.

09/16/2026

One man. One company. One year. $33 million billed to Arizona for treating Native people.

Yesterday federal prosecutors unsealed an 11-count indictment against a 48-year-old Peoria man who ran a "behavioral health" business in Phoenix. According to the indictment, between May 2022 and May 2023 his company billed AHCCCS more than $33 million and collected about $19.7 million of it, almost all for members on the American Indian Health Program.

That's $2.7 million a month. About $90,000 a day, every day, for a year.

Prosecutors say he never disclosed on his state application that he owned the company, or that he had a prior criminal conviction. The state approved him anyway, and paid him anyway.

What the government is now trying to take back: two houses, a Rolls Royce Cullinan, and brokerage accounts.

Here's the part that should stop you.

This is one provider. The state has confirmed $2.8 billion in fraudulent billing across this scheme. If every case looked like this one, that's more than 140 operations just like it. And the state's own numbers say the money kept flowing for years before anyone looked.

While this was happening, relatives were being picked up on reservations and bus stops, moved into houses that billed for "treatment" they never received, and put out on the street when the payments stopped. At least 40 people died in those homes. Families are still looking for the ones who never came back.

He is charged, not convicted. He'll get his day in court. The people whose names were on those invoices never got one.

Read the indictment announcement:

The recent indictment of 48-year-old Maurice Williams says he owned and ran a behavioral health treatment center in Phoenix.

09/14/2026

Quick math problem.

A standard intensive outpatient addiction treatment session is about three hours. Arizona's own billing experts later proposed paying $138 for one of those sessions. That is roughly $46 an hour.

Now here is what the state's Medicaid program actually paid one provider for one session with one client.

$60,000.

Let's break that down. At three hours, that is $20,000 an hour. $333 a minute. About $5.50 every second the client was in the room. For that price you could have paid a licensed therapist for every single hour of a full-time year and still had money left over.

And that was not a typo that got caught the next morning. According to internal state records, claims for the exact same service were coming in anywhere from $150 to $2,500 apiece. Same treatment, same code, different price tag depending on who sent the bill.

The $138 cap was first proposed in July 2022. It did not take effect until May 2023. In between, the money kept moving.

No one had to be a detective to see this. It was sitting right there on the invoice.

Full reporting from ProPublica and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting here:

https://www.propublica.org/article/arizona-sober-homes-deaths-medicaid-fraud

09/11/2026

Imagine you're sitting on the couch tonight, and your phone finally buzzes.

It's your son. He's in Phoenix. He says a van picked him up outside the flea market in Gallup this afternoon. They told him it's a real program, free, the state covers it. He sounds hopeful for the first time in a year.

You ask the name of the place. He doesn't know yet. You ask for the address. He says he'll send it when he figures it out. You tell him to call you Sunday. He says he will. He says love you.

You set the phone down and let yourself breathe.

Sunday comes. Nothing. You text. Nothing. You tell yourself phones aren't allowed in treatment. The next Sunday you text again. The number he gave you for the house is disconnected. You call the hospitals. You call the jail. You call the state, and someone takes a report.

Three weeks later you're back on the same couch, scrolling up to the last thing he sent you, trying to figure out if you should drive four hours to a city of five million people to look for one.

That's the part nobody sees. Not the house. Not the van. The couch.

Here's what the state knew while you were sitting there:

The class action against Arizona represents around 7,000 people run through these homes. The Attorney General's office says at least 40 died inside them. About $2.8 billion was billed for "treatment" and the state has recovered about $139 million, less than 5 cents on the dollar. Families and advocates say the real number of relatives dead or missing is far higher, and nobody has ever counted.

The people running these homes had his name, his health card, and his Medicaid billing number. You didn't even have an address.

If you're the one on the couch tonight, you're not alone.

Read more: https://www.abc15.com/news/state/attorneys-give-update-on-class-action-lawsuit-over-alleged-sober-living-fraud-with-thousands-of-victims

09/10/2026

Imagine this is you.

A van picked you up outside a gas station four hours from here. The driver said Phoenix had a program. Free room, free food, real treatment, all covered by the state. You'd been trying to get clean for a while and nobody else was offering. So you got in.

They took a photo of your ID and your health card at "intake." You signed some forms. You never got copies.

You asked when treatment started. Somebody said Tuesday. Tuesday, a guy came by for twenty minutes, passed around a sign-in sheet, and left. That was group. There was b**r in the fridge. Nobody said a word about it.

You kept asking. You kept getting vague answers. You told yourself at least you had a bed.

Then today, a little after noon, the house manager walked through the hallway and said the state stopped paying. Everybody out by three.

So now you're standing in the hall. Everything you own is in two trash bags and a backpack against the wall. The mattress behind you is already stripped. The manager is at the front door holding it open, pointing at the street like you're supposed to know where that goes.

The only thing in your hand is a phone charger and worry.

You have no money, because you weren't supposed to need any. You don't have your ID, because they still have it. You told your family you were getting help, and you're not calling from a sidewalk to tell them it was a lie.

It's 108 degrees outside that door. You don't know the bus system. The shelter is full. Someone in the next room says another program will take you tonight, and they have a van.

You pick up the bags.

This isn't one person's story. It's what hundreds of people described to reporters, investigators, and to us. A house that billed the state for your name, and put you on the sidewalk the day the checks stopped.

Share this so someone else recognizes it before they pick up the bags.

09/08/2026

One nurse. Fifteen facilities. $55 million.

That's what one nurse practitioner in Phoenix just got sentenced for. Three and a half years in prison and a $55 million restitution order for billing Arizona's Medicaid program for treatment that never happened.

She was listed as the licensed professional for as many as 10 to 15 behavioral health facilities at the same time. Think about that. One person, on paper, supervising care at fifteen different locations.

Her clinic billed the state for children who never got care. For people who were in jail. For people who were already dead.

And when patients didn't cooperate, she threatened to have them thrown out of the sober living homes they were staying in.

This is what the sober living scheme looked like from the inside. Not one bad house. A system where a single signature could unlock millions, and nobody was checking.

She pleaded guilty. She'll do her time. But the relatives who were bounced between those homes, and the families still looking for the ones who never came back, don't get restitution.

If you're just learning about this, share it. Arizona still doesn't understand how big this was.

Read the full story:

Arizona AG Kris Mayes says Rita Anagho was sentenced to prison in a Medicaid fraud case tied to behavioral health billing schemes.