Arizona Woman Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud, Ordered to Pay $4M in Restitution

A court has ordered a woman serving three and a half years in jail for cheating Arizona’s Medicaid system to pay more than $3.8 million in reparations.

Ariell Dix, 37, was the first person imprisoned in the sprawling scam, which mostly targeted Native Americans seeking drug and alcohol addiction therapy. Authorities claimed the overall plot, which involved hundreds of facilities and numerous bad actors, resulted in bogus billings totaling more than $2.5 billion. Authorities said Dix’s role accounted for only around $30 million of that total.

Dix pleaded not guilty to two offenses charged against her. The charges were the same: unauthorized control of an enterprise.

Now, Dix must pay nearly $4 million in restitution for the offenses.

What happened?

Dix was charged in two different incidents between 2019 and 2022 with constructing behavioral health care treatment clinics in the metro Phoenix area to cheat the American Indian Health Program inside AHCCCS, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Dix assisted clinics in establishing themselves, including obtaining office space and assuring a steady supply of patients, according to records. She did not own or operate a fake behavioral health institution in Arizona but was suspected of assisting others in defrauding AHCCCS.

Between the two cases, Dix and other defendants billed the state’s Medicaid system for around $30 million in mental health and drug or alcohol rehabilitation services that were never performed in the Southeast Valley and central Phoenix, Arizona authorities claimed.

Dix also pleaded guilty in March 2020 in a Nevada case involving a similar scam. She was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay approximately $363,000 in reparations to the Nevada Medicaid system. She had permanently lost the capacity to bill to that system.