Crown Counseling’s founder was sentenced Tuesday after admitting she encouraged staff to falsify “gaps” in her agency’s records to pass a state Medicaid audit.
Suzanne Bonaventura-Krischke, 58, signed a plea agreement filed Monday for counterfeiting, a Level 6 felony.
Under the plea, she’ll serve four months on home detention and eight months on probation. She will also have to pay nearly $500 and perform 60 hours of community service.
Her organization provides mental health services to clients with locations in Crown Point and Hammond.
Crown Counseling requested a redo in 2019 to address 95 flagged claims in an audit covering 2010-16.
Auditors noted the original paperwork was changed and resubmitted, which is not allowed. In at least one case someone forged the signature of a staff psychologist who died in 2012, charges state.
Medicaid billing through the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is honor-based because the agency gets too many to check out each one, court records state.
When interviewed in 2020, Krischke told an investigator she knew anyone who falsified documents would be in “big trouble,” saying “someone loyal” on her staff could have done it “thinking it would help her out.”
One witness alleged Krischke and a human resources representative “made everyone in the office create fake treatment plans” after an audit turned up red flags. Part of that may have been bad guidance to therapists told only to make up a “treatment plan” for clients after they were seen “three times.”
Another ex-employee said Krischke “personally directed” them to make “false” documents to pass an audit. Falsifying records to fill in “gaps” was “standard practice,” the witness said, which could include copying signatures “by hand” if needed, according to the affidavit.
mcolias@post-trib.com
