A federal district court in Hawaii has sentenced a former compliance officer to 40 months in prison and ordered her to pay $639,430 in restitution after she pleaded guilty to fraud by entering into contracts with a hospital for consulting services she actually performed as an employee (United States v. Syling).

Patricia M. Syling pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii to all counts of mail fraud in a scheme to defraud her employer Queens Medical Center, a not-for-profit hospital in Honolulu. The contracts between Syling’s businesses, HealthCare Financial & Compliance Management (HFCM) and HealthCare Financial Group (HFG), and the hospital were for consulting services that were Syling’s responsibility as the corporate compliance administrator and director of revenue cycle for Queens, according to court records.

Within the course and scope of her employment responsibilities with Queens, Syling was authorized to solicit and negotiate vendor and service contracts involving the hospital’s billing and collection operations from both private health insurance providers and government health care providers, such as Medicare and Medicaid, an August 2007 indictment said.

For more on the story, see the July-August issue of G-2 Compliance Report.