Local speech therapist guilty of health care fraud

HOUSTON -- Houston speech therapist, Rebecca Lee Rabon, 44, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and five counts of health care fraud in relation to a health care fraud scheme that billed Tricare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas more than $3.7 million, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson.

Rabon is a licensed speech therapist and the owner and operator of Rabon Communication Enhancement (RCE), a speech therapy clinic for children.

At the hearing Friday, she admitted that she worked together with Tiffany Nicole Thompson, 31, to submit claims to insurance providers for services that were not medically necessary and not provided.

Rabon further admitted that between March 29, 2009, and November 11, 2013, her clinic did not have the equipment or supplies to provide treatment for dysphagia - a swallowing and oral feeding dysfunction - and that neither she, nor any speech therapist employed at RCE provided any of those treatments to children at the clinic.

You can find the full report on the Examiner, a Houston Community Newspaper.