Days after a receptionist for a Lubbock counseling center was sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay a hefty fine, her former employer said new policies have been implemented to prevent future fraud.

Paula McNeal was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $104,088 in restitution after she stole money from New Hope Christian Counseling (NHCC) in Lubbock.

McNeal, who worked as a receptionist and took care of billing for the business, stole the money from 2010-2013, according to the United State’s Attorney’s Office.

McNeal pleaded guilty to one county of health care fraud in January 2016. She has been ordered to turn herself in to serve her sentence on June 24.

“She was doing it right under our noses,” said NHCC executive director, Mark White.

“When the checks came in for the claims, she intercepted those checks and then instead of placing them in our accounts, she opened a different account under the name New Hope Counseling instead of New Hope Christian Counseling,” he explained.

“We changed the locks on our doors. I called Ms. McNeal… and asked her to bring in whatever documents she had,” White said. “She never came back on the premises again.”

White said the office environment is family-oriented, and that nobody else at NHCC participated in the illegal activity.

“My thoughts are one that I need a better system to do checks and balances because it was happening right here,” he said.

“I’m just appalled,” White said. “I was shocked that this had occurred.”

White no longer accepts any kind of insurance, which is one of many new policies he has self-imposed.

“One move that I have personally made is that as of that day, I didn’t take any more Medicaid clients, I’m not going to put myself in a position to be defrauded,” he explained. “We do have methods in place today where I personally take a look at all of the income and all of the claims that are made and make sure that it’s all correct.”

“I’m not going to let her wrongdoing govern how I live for the future. I just forgive her for what she’s done. But at the same time, I’ve grown in my own ability to manage and know what to do to prevent that from happening again,” he added.

White claimed that McNeal not only engaged in health care fraud, but defrauded NHCC and other businesses even further.

They investigated Medicaid fraud. But the dishonesty from Paula McNeal working for this organization went a lot further than that,” he said.

He claimed that she stole from 2** Lubbock churches, another company, a local medical organization, a national health insurance company, and a supported living organization.

“She stole a Visa credit card from one of my patients and charged $11,000 worth of car parts on it,” he added.

He said charges for those other allegations would likely not be filed, due to legal costs.

“I think there’s a lesson to be learned for mental health and medical organizations to be more on your toes on how to monitor how the billing takes place,” White said.