A 29-year-old man pleaded guilty to a federal charge of health-care fraud.

The case involved false statements to Medicaid regarding hourly home health-care services he claimed to have provided during time frames when he was actually in jail, according to Acting United States Attorney Michael W. Reap.

Christopher S. Long, 29, of Jefferson City, signed and submitted numerous “personal-care-assistance service log sheets” to a home health-care agency located in Rolla in 2006, Reap said in a released statement. The log sheets purportedly documented the “total hours worked” by Long during two-week pay periods when he was providing personal-care services for his mother.

Long’s log sheets specifically instructed him to indicate any time his mother spent during the pay period in a hospital or nursing home, or out of the home setting, to enable the accurate calculation of Medicaid reimbursement, Reap said.

Long attempted to defraud the Missouri Medicaid program by falsely representing he had provided hourly-care services to his mother on specific times and dates when he was either in prison or his mother was in the hospital, meaning he actually did not provide any care services in the home setting. The  purpose of Long’s scheme was to steal money from the Medicaid program for his personal use, including his bail money, Reap said.

According to court documents, Long signed a contract to be a home-health worker in December 2005, and afterward, was approved by the Missouri Medicaid program to provide personal-care services to his mother, a Medicaid beneficiary, at her residence.

Long pleaded guilty to one count of health-care fraud and will face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and, or, fines up to $250,000 when he is sentenced on Aug. 25.

Reap commended investigative work completed on the case by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.