By Levi Bakke, Valor Investigations
(The full, unabridged investigative report)
Published August 20, 2025
Russell Bingaman asked a simple question: "Why can't I leave?"
Over the next seven months, his medical records would provide the answer—not through consistent documentation, but through a pattern of contradictions so fundamental they expose not just a crisis in elder care, but potential evidence of systematic Medicare fraud.
This investigation reveals:
A forensic analysis of Russell's records reveals they may be evidence in a broader scheme that mirrors the $75 million VITAS hospice fraud settlement. Behind these numbers was a man who died on January 29, 2025, after months of forced separation from his wife, escalating sedation, and medical records that were systematically altered to maximize billing.
"You gonna take me home?"
In April 2024, Russell Bingaman's voice was captured on audio recordings during visits with his wife Patricia. His words were clear, his sentences complete: "I am glad... to see you." When frustrated, he could articulate: "Not... nothing that makes me feel good in this son of a b—."
These recordings matter because three months later, hospice physicians would claim Russell's speech was limited to 1-5 words per day—a classification used to justify his enrollment in end-of-life care and continuation of aggressive sedation protocols.
Patricia Bingaman had been visiting her husband of 58 years often at Nadine's Nest Adult Foster Home in La Grande, Oregon. She brought him food, helped him eat, and advocated for his care. Then on July 3, 2024, she arrived to find the door locked.
No court had ordered this separation. In fact, a standing Family Agreement guaranteed Patricia would "continue to visit... in the same manner she has historically visited him." But the guardians and their attorney had made a decision: Patricia was to be cut off from Russell indefinitely.
What happened next is documented in Russell's medical records—or rather, in the contradictions between what those records initially showed and what they were later changed to claim.
In healthcare, the medical record serves as the objective truth. It determines:
When that foundation is compromised—when numbers can be retroactively changed, when contradictory narratives coexist without challenge—the entire system of protection fails.
Our review of Russell Bingaman's records reveals a troubling pattern:
July 3, 2024: The Lockout Begins
When guardians' attorney cut off Patricia's visits on July 3, Russell weighed 160 pounds according to hospice admission records. The same day, he was re-enrolled in hospice care—though hospice's own notes confirm "Patty is not aware Russell is on hospice again."
A new medication regimen was immediately implemented:
This pharmaceutical cocktail was layered atop Russell's existing medications, creating what staff would later describe as excessive sedation that made him difficult to rouse and unable to eat properly.
August 7, 2024: The Documented Crisis
Thirty-five days after the lockout began, hospice recertification records documented Russell's weight at 132 pounds—measured "on scales" according to the chart. The entry explicitly noted he was "thin and frail."
The math is stark: 28 pounds lost in 35 days.
This represents the steepest decline documented in Russell's entire medical record. During this exact period, guardians would later testify that Russell was "much improved" and had "gained a little bit of weight" after his wife's visits were restricted.
October 6, 2024: The Committee Decision
For two months, Russell's charts consistently referenced the 132-pound measurement. Then came an Interdisciplinary Group (IDG) meeting—a committee review of care plans. The meeting notes declared:
"160 LBS PREVIOUS WT STATED BY STAFF WAS INACCURATE PT WEIGHT STABLE PAST TWO MONTHS"
There are three fundamental problems with this declaration:
The Impossibility Ledger
Behind these numerical contradictions lies another layer of evidence: the audit trail. Electronic medical records track every access and modification. Russell's audit logs reveal something extraordinary—68 administrative edits to his medical records, the vast majority made by non-clinical accounts.
The "Phantom Edit" Pattern
The pattern is unmistakable: 48 "Service Code Changes" by ADMIN HCHB, CUSTOMER SUPPORT. These edits, made by a vendor support account rather than clinical staff, occurred at highly unusual hours:
Many of these appear to be "phantom edits"—changes that don't actually change anything. For example, service codes being "changed" from one value to the identical value. In data governance, such no-delta changes often indicate attempts to obscure other modifications, back-end manipulation of records, or testing of system permissions for future changes.
The Database Administrator's Overnight Work
A separate pattern emerges with the SQL-SVC-JAMS-PRD-RWX account. Analysis reveals this isn't even a human user—it's an automated service account for JAMS (a job scheduling system) with read-write-execute permissions on the production database. This automated system made 9 edits, all labeled "SUPPLIES DELIVERED/USED EDITED."
Critical timing of automated edits:
The final automated edit occurred just one day before Russell's death, modifying supply records that directly impact Medicare billing. Why is an automated job scheduler changing medical supply records? These modifications could alter billing for durable medical equipment—another revenue stream.
The Pattern of Timing
The 68 edits show clear clustering around critical events: initial hospice enrollment, the July 2024 lockout and weight loss period, legal proceedings, and his final two months.
The audit trail reveals three distinct patterns of manipulation:
The contrast is stark: while clinical staff made 11 legitimate edits during normal hours, non-clinical administrative accounts made 57 edits—often in the middle of the night, frequently changing nothing, always at critical junctures in Russell's care.
Understanding the Financial Incentive
The 48 "SERVICE CODE CHANGED" edits aren't just administrative oddities—they're the mechanism for a potential multi-million dollar fraud scheme. To understand why, you need to know how Medicare pays for hospice care.
Medicare reimburses hospice providers at four different rates based on the level of care provided each day:
The financial incentive is clear: changing a single day's billing code from Routine Home Care to Continuous Home Care increases reimbursement by 400-600%. Multiply that across hundreds of patients and thousands of days, and you have a multi-million dollar fraud scheme.
The Smoking Gun: How "Service Code Changes" Hide Upcoding
A analysis reveals that these "SERVICE CODE CHANGED" edits may not change the visible service description (it still says "Skilled Nursing Visit") but instead alter the underlying Revenue Code that determines Medicare payment. This is sophisticated fraud—invisible to casual review but devastating in its financial impact.
Here's how it works:
The forensic analysis identified a specific coordinated pattern in Russell's Chart 2:
Why remove caregiver instruction notes? Because Continuous Home Care requires a "period of crisis" that family cannot manage. Documentation showing successful caregiver instruction directly contradicts crisis status—so it had to disappear before the billing code could be changed.
The Federal Lawsuit: A Pattern of Fraud
This isn't an isolated incident. An active qui tam (whistleblower) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey alleges that Homecare Homebase's software is intentionally designed to facilitate upcoding fraud. The court has already ruled that HCHB can be held liable for "causing" false claims through its software design.
The lawsuit alleges HCHB's software:
In April 2024, the federal court denied HCHB's motion to dismiss, finding the allegations credible that the software was designed with "deliberate ignorance to, or reckless disregard for, the falsity of information being submitted."
Russell's audit logs may be direct evidence of this scheme in action—48 service code changes by HCHB's own support staff, not clinical providers, systematically elevating billing codes to maximize Medicare reimbursement.
The VITAS Precedent: $75 Million for the Same Scheme
In 2017, VITAS Hospice paid $75 million to settle allegations of systematically billing for unnecessary Continuous Home Care. The government proved VITAS:
The pattern in Russell's records—frequent service code changes by non-clinical staff to elevate billing levels—mirrors exactly what VITAS paid $75 million to settle.
The Critical Legal Distinction
The AseraCare case established that differences in clinical judgment don't constitute fraud—physicians can reasonably disagree about a patient's prognosis. But Russell's case presents something fundamentally different: the 48 service code changes weren't made by physicians exercising clinical judgment. They were made by ADMIN HCHB, CUSTOMER SUPPORT—a software vendor's technical support account.
When a software support technician changes a billing code from $200/day to $1,000/day, that's not "clinical judgment." It's administrative manipulation of billing records. If these changes resulted in claims for crisis care unsupported by clinical documentation, they constitute what AseraCare defined as "objective falsehoods"—the exact standard for Medicare fraud.
The Financial Impact on Russell's Case
Consider the timing: In July 2024 alone—the month Russell was locked away from Patricia and lost catastrophic weight—there were 8 service code changes by HCHB support. Each change potentially converted a $200 routine care day into a $1,000+ crisis care claim. The isolation wasn't just cruel; it was profitable.
If even 30% of Russell's hospice days were fraudulently upcoded from Routine to Continuous Home Care, the overpayment could exceed $100,000 for this single patient. Multiply that across Heart 'N Home Hospice's entire census, and the fraud could reach millions.
But the real cost wasn't financial—it was human. The pressure to maintain high-paying billing codes may have driven decisions to:
FAST Scores and the 1-5 Word Fiction
Hospice eligibility for dementia patients relies heavily on the Functional Assessment Staging Test (FAST). To qualify, patients must demonstrate severe decline, including speech limited to 1-5 words per day (FAST Stage 7A).
Russell's hospice records repeatedly claim he met this criterion. Yet:
These are not the utterances of someone limited to 1-5 words daily. No clinician ever provided an actual word count assessment. The FAST score appears to have been assigned to ensure hospice eligibility, not to reflect Russell's actual capabilities.
Locking the Door Without a Key
The legal authority to isolate Russell from Patricia contains its own set of contradictions:
Manufacturing the Narrative
Two whistleblowers from the facility provided statements about documentation manipulation:
Independent logs showed 94% of Patricia's visits resulted in no issues or positive outcomes.
When the Numbers Disappear
In Russell's final month, weight measurements vanish from the record entirely. The sedation regimen intensifies:
January 29, 2025: Russell Bingaman dies.
Patricia was allowed limited visits in his final days. She, and Russell's children, were with him when he passed.
A System Built on Fraud
The evidence presented here—drawn from medical records, audit analysis, and federal court documents—reveals more than poor documentation. It exposes a potential criminal enterprise where:
The Numbers Tell the Story
The timeline speaks for itself:
Russell Bingaman asked, "Why can't I leave?" The answer lies not just in contradictory medical records, but in a sophisticated fraud scheme where his suffering was monetized through systematic billing manipulation.
When Homecare Homebase support staff make 48 "service code changes"—potentially converting $200 routine care days into $1,000+ crisis care claims—this isn't poor documentation. It's potentially criminal Medicare fraud. When these changes follow a pattern of staff removing notes that contradict crisis status, it suggests coordination. When this exact pattern matches allegations in federal court against HCHB for designing software to facilitate fraud, it demands investigation.
The forensic analysis reveals Russell's case may be evidence of a scheme that:
This investigation raises questions that demand immediate answers:
The audit trail reveals the mechanism. The weight contradictions expose the human cost. The billing analysis shows the financial motive. Together, they paint a picture of healthcare fraud that treats elderly patients as revenue streams rather than human beings.
Patricia Bingaman still has the recordings of her husband's voice—the only medical documentation that cannot be retroactively edited or upcoded. In them, Russell speaks clearly, asks to go home, wonders why he can't leave. I have video and pictures of Russell walking, standing, smirking when he was supposed to be FAST 7A, basically bed-ridden.
He couldn't leave because his imprisonment was profitable. His sedation was billable. His decline was a revenue opportunity. And when reality didn't match the billing needs, reality was edited.
This isn't just medical malpractice. If the analysis is correct, it's organized crime.
Patty and Russell were separated at the end of a 58-year marriage. While fighting for Russell, Patty lost her family; she is estranged. Painted as the person who "gaslights," "only thinks of herself," and the one who "killed our father." The threats of moveout, manipulated information, falsified logs, and other manipulations had the guardians sure they were "protecting our father."
The Nexus, Attorneys Wyatt Baum, Glenn Null, Emily Cooper, Nadine's Nest owner and Nurse Tempie Bartell (who is the ONLY one to examine sexually abused CHILDREN for 8 counties), Nadine's Nest Resident Manager Alicia Khoza, DHS supervisor Aaron Lenox, APD Erin Smith, APS Eric Stone, Dr. Bryan Conklin, Dr. Raffaella Betza, Dr. Nathan Ruden, Alice Shaw, RN, Elizabeth Zehrung, LPN, Renna Martinez, Aide, Shane Dresen, Chaplain, Katheryn Joseph, Tina Baxter, Kluane Robbins, RN, Donna Whitehurst, RN, David Bacchus, MSW, Kathrine Burnett, RN, Sara Waliser, Brittney Cramer, Robert Johnson Jr., Pastor/Counselor, Tamson Ross, RN, Judge Wes Williams, and Judge Jared Boyd—ALL had a duty to provide care, to do NO HARM, to REPORT, to GOD, to JUSTICE, to Russell and Patty, to their children, to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They all had a duty to our community and in the face of cruelty, in the face of fraud, in the face of HARM and even death, they are likely guilty of being complicit or complacent.
In the next article called "David," you will find out what this disabled veteran did along this journey. What began as a fight for Patty, and for Russell (whom I never even met) turned into a fight against a Goliath called The Nexus.
Because of the nature of this article, I will be publishing the remaining one or two very quickly. I understand the stakes; I have for a while. This is why my house is surrounded by cameras, why I carry protection. These people may be cowards who prey on the vulnerable but, they are cowards with money and connections.
I have a message for them. This information is already out and what isn't in the public space yet, is in the cloud. No matter what records you attempt to destroy, how fast you may pack your bags, no matter what you do, your life is now forever changed and it's not because of me. YOU made your choices and you made a lot of them over many years to get to this point. And in the end it will be a sweet little old Irish lady and an "unhinged" disabled Marine Veteran that took you down.
Let me lay this out in a crayon eating Jar Head kind of way, YOU F--KED WITH THE WRONG LADY, THE WRONG OLD VETERAN and you did it IN FRONT OF THE WRONG MARINE.
The investigation continues. What you've just read is the fraud that profited from Russell's suffering. But there are darker questions that demand answers—and bigger players than you know.
Russell died on January 29, 2025—one day after the final database edit to his medical records. A man under 24/7 medical supervision died just as the evidence was mounting. And it all happened during the merger that brought Optum/United Healthcare into our valley. The same United Healthcare now under federal investigation for using AI to deny care to dying patients. They're here. They've partnered with the Nexus.
DA Kelsey McDaniel, former Mount Emily Safe Center board member, and Sheriff Cody Bowen have apparently refused to ask the questions surrounding Russell's death. Despite the binder they each received.
Next, you'll see the evidence they ignored. You'll discover what happened when I filed into the guardianship case to make a record, show the court the misconduct, and how Judge Boyd didn't just deny me—he banned me from ever filing again. You'll learn what I'm doing about that judicial overreach. The dishonorable Judge gets served TODAY, August 20, 2025. We'll see what the Oregon Supreme Court says about judges who silence those seeking justice for the dead.
I'll present the facts. You draw your own conclusions about why a local corruption case suddenly involves the largest healthcare corporation in America and why Russell's death deserves investigation.
When every door gets slammed in your face, you don't give up. You blow the walls down.
The Russell Bingaman Memorial Act is coming.
This investigation demands immediate action from multiple authorities:
For Federal Prosecutors:
For State Authorities:
For Medicare/CMS:
For Congress:
Russell Bingaman died asking why he couldn't leave. The answer is now clear: his captivity was worth up to $1,000 per day in fraudulent Medicare billing. His suffering was profitable. His death was monetized.
This cannot stand. Every day this system continues, another Russell Bingaman is being held captive, sedated, and billed for crisis care they don't need while their families are locked out and their records are manipulated.
The evidence is clear. The pattern is established. The precedent exists. Now we need prosecutors with the courage to act.
For Russell, who asked why he couldn't leave.
For Patricia, who fought to see him.
For the guardians and what they have to live with.
For every vulnerable adult whose care is being upcoded.
For every taxpayer funding this fraud.
Justice delayed is justice denied. And for Russell Bingaman, justice is already 203 days late.
This investigation is based on:
The analysis revealed:
All factual assertions are supported by documentary evidence. Medicare documentation standards referenced are from CMS Conditions of Participation, 42 CFR §418. Fraud analysis based on OIG fraud indicators and DOJ enforcement precedents.
Questions about this investigation or requests for supporting documentation should be directed to:
Info@ValorInvestigates.com
Valor Investigations
La Grande, Oregon
If any party believes a statement herein is inaccurate or wishes to provide a formal response, verified corrections or statements will be appended to the online version of this report.
For Russell Bingaman: September 15, 1947 - January 29, 2025