Medicaid Office Director, Sandra King Young his dismissed concerns that her office hired a convicted felon, the hospital’s former business manager Jennifer Tofaeono as a grant writer, and explains that she works for an outside firm that does consultancy work for the Medicaid office.

Ms Tofaeono pled guilty to conspiracy to commit felony stealing of hospital money to the tune of $50,000 and in January 2015, Chief Justice Michael Kruse sentenced her to five years in jail, and however the execution of sentence was suspended under the condition that she serves 20 months in jail.  Tofaeono was granted work release not long after sentencing was handed down. 

Samoa News received calls from members of the public complaining about the risk of hiring Tofaeono for the Medicaid office and questions was sent to the Medicaid Director who was off island. Responding to Samoa News queries, Young said that the firm that did the hiring is “Prime Consultants” and the Medicaid Office has been working with Luana Scanlan of Prime Consultants since April or May 2014.

The Director explained that Luana Scanlan was a team member on her SIM grant proposal project with Mick McCuddin, Dr.Mark Durand and Vaa Tofaeono. These were the people assigned by LBJ, DOH and Medicaid at the time they were working on the State Innovation Models (SIM) grant.

Samoa News notes that this grant provides financial and technical support to states and territories for the development and testing of state-led, multi-payer health care payment and service delivery models that will improve health system performance, increase quality of care, and decrease costs for Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.

 The SIM initiative is providing over $660 million to 32 awardees including 28 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia.

According to the Medicaid Director “Luana's work was very impressive and I was very happy with the results. I have since retained Luana to provide technical assistance support to our office on the SIM, as she is very familiar with it. Luana has a number of employees including JF (Jennifer Tofaeono) but you will have to ask her when JF was hired as I don't recall.”

According to Young, “JF technically does not work in or report to our office. From what I understand, JF works for Prime Consultants on other projects as well but I can't confirm that.” She also made it clear that she does not have the authority to tell Luana who to hire and fire in her company.

“I don't think it's my place to tell her how to run her business. And they do not work in our office, only when they need to work face to face and as needed by my staff.  So far I have been very satisfied with their work for our office.  They're very competent and dedicated people.” She further stated that she doesn’t see a risk in their office given the matter. “I don't see the risk to our office but I would be happy to learn further by anyone raising these concerns. Whatever they are, I'm sure we can work out a solution if needed.”

BACKGROUND

Last year, Tofaeono admitted during her plea agreement that between May 2009 and June 2011 in American Samoa— when she was the hospital’s business manager—she admits that they used credit cards to commit this crime. Tofaeno admitted in the plea agreement that $50,950 was the money they collected from this crime and that she used part of this money.  She also noted that she’s ready to pay back the hospital.

Tofaeono was ordered to serve 20 months in jail, pay restitution in the amount of $51,900, and remain a law-abiding citizen. Kruse, in his remarks before the court, pointed out that while employed at the hospital Tofaeono and subordinate(s) were involved in a scheme of using credit cards and somehow the hospital cashier would cash out receipts from those transactions. The cash was given to the defendant and the hospital’s credit card receipt never made it to the hospital’s bank account.