The nurse who pleaded guilty to health care fraud in connection with the Carl DeBrodie case has surrendered her license.
Melissa DeLap, 49, a Columbia-based registered nurse, gave up her license Monday following a settlement with the Missouri State Board of Nursing.
DeLap pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud Aug. 20, promising to voluntarily surrender her license within six months.
DeLap provided community registered nurse services to four residents of Second Chance Homes of Fulton, including DeBrodie. Part of her job involved making and documenting monthly visits to each of the four. For each visit to each resident, Medicaid paid $38 to Second Chance, which passed on the money to DeLap.
In April 2017, DeBrodie's body turned up in a concrete block at a storage facility in Fulton.
DeLap documented visits with DeBrodie each month from September 2016 through March 2017, according to the settlement. She told Fulton police April 18 that she recalled seeing him in March.
"She said that DeBrodie had lost weight, but had been slowly gaining it back, and that she had used a stethoscope on him," DeLap's plea agreement states.
These visits couldn't have happened because DeBrodie was already dead at that time. An autopsy found he'd been dead for months, with evidence putting his death sometime in September 2016.
"Licensee admitted to falsely documenting visits to patient (Carl DeBrodie) for financial gain," the settlement states.
Her plea agreement requires DeLap to pay $106,795 in restitution to Medicare.
She also agreed never to seek to be re-licensed as a nurse in the United States. DeLap was first licensed as a registered nurse in 1996, according to nurse license registry Nursys.