The manager of a home health-care company based in Schaumburg has been convicted of 21 counts of Medicare fraud and three counts of making false statements in a health-care matter.
Diana Jocelyn Gumila, 46, of Streamwood, was convicted by a jury Friday night in U.S. District Court in Chicago after a two-week trial, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Gumila was the manager of Suburban Home Physicians, which operated as Doctor at Home. Prosecutors said she directed employees to perform in-home visits with patients who were physically capable of leaving their homes and not in need of in-home treatment and also inflated the costs by directing employees to bill for treatment at the highest level even though the visits were typically routine.
In a secret recording played at Gumila’s trial, she told a new doctor to “paint the picture” of patients to make them appear confined to their homes, according to prosecutors. An email from Gumila presented to the jury also referred to a doctor who didn’t read orders before signing them as “the type of doctor we need because he will just do what we tell him to do.”
Two other defendants — Chicago physician Alan Newman and nurse James Ademiju — previously were convicted in the federal investigation into Doctor at Home.
Gumila is set to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras on July 26. Each of the 21 fraud counts is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to prosecutors.
