Anchorage counseling business owner agrees to plead guilty in $2.7M VA fraud

The owner of an Anchorage counseling business has agreed to plead guilty to a federal health care fraud charge, admitting she billed the Department of Veterans Affairs $2.7 million as a licensed clinical social worker, a license the State of Alaska denied her in 2005.

Federal prosecutors filed the one-count felony charge and her plea agreement Friday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. "I am guilty of Health Care Fraud as charged in Count 1 of the Information," her signed statement reads.

The agreement says she employed someone with no license or training to conduct therapy sessions, then billed those sessions to the VA under her own name. From 2020 through January 2026, she submitted 2,833 false claims, and the VA paid about $1.8 million of them, the agreement states. State records list no professional license in her name.

She admits that diagnosis codes were prefilled without a diagnosis being made. She was listed as the provider while she was out of state and out of the country, for veterans she had never met. Remote sessions run by the employee were billed as in-person visits, and codes for prolonged sessions were added that did not apply.

She agrees to pay the VA at least $1,839,727 in restitution, with the court setting the final amount: $1.1 million by sentencing and the remaining $700,000 plus interest over three years of supervised release. Both sides will recommend a $20,000 fine. The charge carries up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and up to three years of supervised release.

The two sides agree on a sentencing guidelines offense level of 24, a score the judge uses to find the advisory sentencing range. The government will recommend 22 if she pays the $1.1 million by sentencing and will recommend a sentence no higher than the low end of the range. The court decides whether to accept the agreement when it imposes sentence.

Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon set a combined arraignment and change of plea hearing for 2 pm Alaska time Monday, Oct. 19, in Anchorage. She agrees to be sentenced within 120 days of entering her plea.