demoted the agency to probationary status<\/a> over similar concerns about the agency\u2019s inadequate staff training and skills, failure to comply with housing inspections and high staff turnover.<\/p>\nThe settlement is the result of an investigation by the Vermont Attorney General\u2019s Office\u2019s Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit.<\/p>\n
The unit began investigating the agency in 2023 after receiving a complaint from DAIL of substandard Medicaid services for individuals in UCS\u2019s public safety group \u2014 those are developmentally disabled people who may pose a public safety risk, some of whom a court has identified as needing care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The settlement agreement details 10 clients with various developmental disabilities \u2014\u00a0including three clients with histories of sexual violence against minors or women. These clients require \u201ca high level of care and supervision to maintain the safety of (the client) and the community at large,\u201d the agreement reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agreement says that \u201cservice failures\u201d caused a lapse in this standard of care and \u201ccaused serious and preventable risks.\u201d Some of the identified failures go back as far as April 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an email, a spokesperson for the Attorney General\u2019s Office provided more information on some of these oversight lapses. UCS\u2019s oversights included \u201crepeatedly\u201d placing the clients in shared living environments with unrestricted access to children and failing to notify other residents and provide a complete history of the client\u2019s behavior.<\/p>\n
The office\u2019s investigation also revealed a number of administrative failures in decision making surrounding the care of these individuals in the public safety group. United Counseling Service did not assign its staff responsibilities in line with their level of training, education and experience, the Attorney General\u2019s Office added.<\/p>\n
All the while, UCS continued to bill Vermont Medicaid for these services. The Attorney General\u2019s Office labels these claims as false, because they implied a compliance with the legal standards of care that were not met.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUCS knew its claims for Medicaid payment for these substandard services to (the 10 clients) were materially false, UCS acted in deliberate ignorance of the fact that its claims were materially false, and UCS acted in reckless disregard of the fact that its claims were materially false,\u201d the settlement reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heidi French, a spokesperson for UCS, told VTDigger that the agency is taking the issues seriously and \u201ctook immediate action to improve compliance, reporting, and quality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said the developmental services division has a new leadership team, which is focusing on improved training and oversight and is scaling up quality and compliance review to ensure the organization meets the Medicaid standards. French also confirmed that the agency has hired the two specialists the agreement mandated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
French added that now that this issue has been resolved with the state, the agency considers it closed. The settlement does not change the agency\u2019s probationary status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney General Charity Clark in 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger Credit: Glenn Russell United Counseling Service in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253,238006],"class_list":["post-529104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-united-counseling-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/charity-clark-2-20240206-1200x799.jpg\")
Attorney General Charity Clark in 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger Credit: Glenn Russell<\/p>\n![\"State](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/United-Counseling-Services-headquarters-on-Ledge-Hill-Drive-in-Bennington-contributed.jpg\")
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