Ex- Mt. Juliet therapy clinic owners sued for Medicaid fraud

The Tennessee Attorney General has filed a lawsuit that accuses the owners of a now closed Mt. Juliet therapy clinic of Medicaid fraud.

Karyn Kurth and Michelle Hill owned and operated Dynamic Therapy Center when the lawsuit, filed in Wilson County Circuit Court, alleges they knowingly submitted false claims to TennCare from 2020 to 2023.

Hill is also the chief executive officer of Empower Me Center, a nonprofit in Lebanon that works with individuals with special needs in multiple ways.

There are no allegations in the lawsuit from the Tennessee Attorney General that relate to Empower Me Center. Hill is working with an attorney, she said in a text message.

Efforts to reach Kurth were not immediately successful.

The state is seeking to recover more than $300,000 in fraudulent payments to Dynamic Therapy Center along with additional costs, according to the Attorney General’s office.

The defendants are accused of billing TennCare for individual physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy sessions while actually providing group therapy to children in sessions that were called “camps.”

TennCare reimburses individual therapy sessions at higher rates than group sessions and the lawsuit alleges “a substantial number of overpayments to Dynamic Therapy Center.”

Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Lawsuit: Ex-Mt. Juliet therapy clinic owners took $300K from Medicaid