Nathan Ogbatue, a U.S.-based Nigerian entrepreneur who amassed tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. healthcare system, is facing several unanswered questions after he failed to file his mandatory utilisation report and answer queries about the nature and beneficiaries of the services his company provided to justify the $36 million received from the American government.
Mr Ogbatue is the CEO of California Home Health Agency, which U.S. taxpayers fund to provide home health aide, skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and medical social services.
Mr Ogbatue, who filed utilisation reports between 2018 and 2021 and made a combined $2 million over the four years, suddenly stopped filing them in the following three years, the same period he raked in $34 million as a Medicaid contractor, a report by the U.S. City State Journal said.
Regarded as “half man, half god” by the villagers of Abatete, Anambra, whom he furnished with a majestic palace, houses and good roads, Mr Ogbatue’s philanthropy endeared him to community members to the point that he was bestowed a chieftaincy title, Owelle.
But the source of Mr Ogbatue’s multimillion-dollar wealth is shrouded in secrecy that, experts say, bears all the hallmarks of fraud, the City Journal reported.
Many Americans, Nigerians and foreigners have been prosecuted for exploiting the loopholes of the Medicaid system to defraud the U.S. government. In June, the Justice Department was prosecuting 90 doctors over allegations of defrauding the U.S. healthcare system of $6.5 billion.
Mr Ogbatue’s wife, Agnes, filed the annual mandatory utilisation report from 2013 to 2019. Findings by the City Journal showed the company stopped filing it with California’s Health Care Access and Information Department “despite continued requests”.
In 2018, Mr Ogbatue’s CHHA made only $89,570, which contrasts sharply with approximately $4 million netted in 2022. In 2023, CHHA’s revenue ballooned into double-digit millions, with $17 million, and $13 million in 2024.
The Igbo chief also began acquiring multimillion-dollar properties in the same period he stopped filing the utilisation report. From buying a $330,000 home in 2000, Mr Ogbatue’s real estate acquisitions grew into millions, including at least three luxury properties worth $7 million. He bought a $2.7 million luxury mansion, another $1.9 million beach house in Redondo, and a $1.4 million property, the Journal reported.
Mr Ogbatue denied any wrongdoing.
“We worked really hard, to be honest with you. If we were doing anything funny, we wouldn’t talk to you,” Mr Ogbatue said. “I’m talking to you because I have nothing to fear. What I’m telling you is that we worked hard.”
However, Mr Ogbatue failed to disclose an estimate of the number of CHHA employees and instead implied that he was being targeted in the U.S. for being Black.
“All the white people that made more money than me, have you ever chased them?” Mr Ogbatue reasoned. “I don’t care if you’re white or orange or polka dot. A snake is a snake, whether it’s black, white, or orange.”
Mr Ogbatue, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, directed further questions to his lawyer, Wilfred Aka.
The federal U.S. Tax Court had disbarred the lawyer. The California State Bar also suspended Mr Aka in 2019 and 2020.
Mark Haskins, a fraud expert and former investigator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said CHHA’s billings did not match its small office.
According to the fraud expert, the refusal to submit mandatory disclosure forms for years raised major red flags that should not be ignored.
“In my experience, companies with unidentifiable employees, billing for a large number of services, and failing to supply a utilisation report to the state for more than six years that would easily verify much of the information in question have all the earmarks of a fraudulent shell company that fabricates stolen patient and even NPI numbers to submit fabricated billings,” he said.
Another expert, Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, who reviewed CHHA’s Medicaid data, said “extraordinary volume of services being billed” was worrisome.
“What jumps off the page is not the amount being charged for each service—it is the extraordinary volume of services being billed,” Mr Talvove said. “This agency went from roughly half a million dollars in annual Medi-Cal payments to $17 million in 2023, while reaching the very top of the statewide distribution for the frequency of certain nursing and home-health-aide claims.”