A Melbourne mother with a history for medical fraud will go to jail after scamming $180,000 from Medicare, but her sentence has been delayed until a decision on whether her baby can go with her.
Sarah Ward, 31, was working as a receptionist at the Melbourne Digestive Clinic in Noble Park when she began putting through hundreds of dodgy Medicare claims for herself and her husband.
She made up to 80 claims a day between March 2019 and when she was caught in April 2020.
Over the year she submitted 781 false Medicare patient claims in her own name and 828 in the name of her husband before the clinic’s accountants tipped off Medicare and authorities.
Ward pleaded guilty to a single charge of obtaining a financial advantage by deception from a commonwealth entity.
But the single charge doesn’t take away the seriousness, especially with a prior conviction for a $29,000 fraud against a hospital, County Court Judge Geoff Chettle said on Wednesday.
“This is really 1600 crimes committed over the course of a year … on a daily basis she was rorting the system,” he said.
As part of her job Ward had access to the Medicare patient claims system and used that to make false claims for consultations with the two doctors who supervised her at the clinic.
The total claims amounted to $181,121.75 which was paid into bank accounts for her and her husband.
It was a “robbery of the Australian community”, prosecutor Adam Murphy said.
While Ward’s lawyer Michael Allen said she was remorseful for her actions, Judge Chettle pointed to a psychiatric report which included “pseudo-justification of her really being entitled to take this money because they were working too hard”.
In 2015 Ward dishonestly obtained $29,000 in false refunds on behalf of patients at Cabrini Hospital, where she had then worked.
Mr Allen said Ward had been working at another medical practice between the recent offending and going on maternity leave before the birth of her second child in February last year.
They weren’t aware of her fraud, he confirmed.
“That’s problematic,” the judge replied.
Ward has repaid the money in full, taking $100,000 from a mortgage offset account and selling a $70,000 car. She also borrowed money from her mother.
Mr Allen said Ward’s family would suffer some hardship as a result of her imprisonment, which he conceded was necessary.
Ward has two children, including a breastfeeding infant who it’s hoped will be able to go into custody with her as part of Corrections Victoria’s living with mum program.
A decision on her eligibility cannot be made until mid-February.
Judge Chettle noted she would have a harder time in custody being separated from her older child, and the younger if that application is not approved, but put the blame squarely on her.
“She did that to her family,” he said.
Ward, who is on bail, will be sentenced on March 15.
