Anchorage woman to plead guilty to billing VA $2.7M as a social worker without a license

The owner of an Anchorage counseling business has agreed to plead guilty to a federal health care fraud charge, admitting she billed the U.S. 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. She was listed as the provider for veterans she had never met, including while she was out of state and out of the country.

Diagnosis codes were prefilled without a diagnosis being made, she admits. Remote sessions run by the employee were billed as in-person visits, and codes for prolonged sessions were added that did not apply.

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 agrees to repay the VA at least $1,839,727, with the court setting the final amount. She would pay $1.1 million by sentencing and the rest, 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. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a lower sentencing range if she pays the $1.1 million by sentencing, and a sentence at the low end of that range. The court decides whether to accept the agreement when it imposes sentence.

She is scheduled to enter her plea at 2 pm Monday before Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon in Anchorage. She agrees to be sentenced within 120 days after that.