This paper details, in chronological order, the facts and events leading up to the Nevada State Welfare
Division's cancellation of Operation Life Community Health Center's EPSDT provider contract and the
State's subsequent legal suit against the center on charges of fraudulent billing practices in the sum
of $10,000. The purpose of the paper is to counteract the charges against this Las Vegas community
run health clinic, by placing the facts in proper perspective. This chronological study shows the desires
of Welfare Division officials to abolish the EPSDT program, both state?wide and specifically at Operation
Life Community Health Center. Its objective is to establish the political basis of the fraud charges by
detailing the state's harassment of the center. In sum, the paper outlines how the Welfare Division
used a maze?of regulations and bureaucratic red?tape to trap Operation Life Community Health
Center into making mistakes on billing procedures for the EPSDT program, thereby showing the
states claim of fraud and malicious intent in submitting of EPSDT bills, politically motivated rather
than a service of the public interest in good faith.
Data was collected in a four?week intensive field research period. Research consisted of numerous
interviews with lawyers involved in the case and outside observers respectively. One of the outside
observers was a state Senator from Las Vegas. A compilation of correspondence between Nevada
State Welfare and Operation Life Community Health Center. A chronological file of news-clippings as
the legal suit was unfolding. Reading over of court documents, including, but not limited to, briefs,
transcripts, and despositions.
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