TALLAHASSEE, FL - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a former Hospice Medicaid Coordinator was taken into custody on charges that she had been stealing money from her patients’ bank accounts. Monica Bess was arrested by authorities with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.

An investigation by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit revealed that Bess, of Newberry, was formerly employed as a Medicaid Coordinator with Hospice of North Central Florida and was responsible for helping hospice patients qualify for Medicaid. Through her job, she had access to patients’ financial information and allegedly used that information to divert funds from one account on at least two occasions. Authorities believe she stole more than $1,400 over a two-month period. The case was reported to the Department of Children & Families, Adult Protective Investigations, which referred the investigation to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Bess, 38, is charged with exploiting the elderly, a third-degree felony punishable by five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The case will be prosecuted by the State Attorney’s Office for the Eighth Judicial Circuit.