BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
EDISON — A township man could face up to five years in state prison and $15,000 in fines for bilking the state for thousands of dollars worth of phony Medicaid claims.
Andrew Stoveken, 55, of Westover Way, Edison, the owner of New Brunswick-based Acoustics Hearing Aid Center, pleaded guilty on April 15 to health-care claims fraud, a third-degree offense, according to officials at the state Office of the Attorney General’s Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ).
The charges stem from alleged incidents that took place between February and August 2003, said Division of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Rachel Sacharow.
Stoveken admitted that he submitted false health-care claims to Medicaid, a state program that provides health-care benefits to the needy, according to DCJ reports.
The fraud charges allege that Stoveken represented to Medicaid that he was going to provide 32 hearing aid batteries to his customers who were using the program.
A Division of Criminal Justice’s fraud prosecutor, Greta Gooden-Brown, determined that Stoveken only provided 16 of the 32 batteries to clients, but billed Medicaid for the 32, Sacharow said.
In addition, Stoveken “admitted that he permitted a person who was not a Medicaid provider to bill the Medicaid program, utilizing Stoveken’s Medicaid provider number,” Sacharow said. “The person was an unauthorized provider and, according to our records, charged more than $126,000 to the program.”
Stoveken is slated for sentencing on July 15, which will take place in state Superior Court, New Brunswick, Sacharow said.