Psychologist William Kale among health care execs convicted in $30 million fraud scheme

July 15, 2013

On June 10, 2013, Florida psychologist William Kale was convicted of two counts of health care fraud for submitting false expenditure reports to the sate Medicaid program. He faces up to ten years in prison when sentenced.

Federal prosecutors accused Kale, along with other former executives of the health maintenance organization WellCare Health Plans Inc., of defrauding the Medicaid program of nearly $30 million. Kale is the former vice president of Harmony Behavioral Health Inc. (a subsidiary of WellCare).

Prosecutors stated that WellCare took Medicaid money with the understanding that if it did not use 80 percent of the funds for behavioral health services, the difference was to be returned to the state. Prosecutors said defendants including Kale conspired to inflate reports of what they actually spent, in order to reduce the amount they had to return.