Butte Counselor Pleads Guilty To Medicaid Fraud

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — A mental health counselor from Butte has pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicaid by billing the federal program for services that she did not provide.

Dana Trandahl had been charged with 13 counts of Medicaid fraud and two other felonies that alleged tens of thousands of dollars in fraud.

)She pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of Medicaid fraud as part of an agreement that calls for the rest of the charges to be dismissed at sentencing, The Montana Standard reported. A sentencing date has not been set.

The case against Trandahl began when a former client said that rather than counseling her, Trandahl talked about her own family issues and her efforts to regain custody of her children.

A review of Trandahl’s billing practices found a case where she billed Medicaid for counseling a man who hadn’t recently been in her office. Investigators also received a complaint from the mother of a developmentally disabled woman who said Trandahl had billed Medicaid for services that had not occurred.