The primary care physician leading the Montana "personhood" campaign is under multiple investigations for Medicaid fraud: She allegedly insisted that patients pray with her.

The primary care physician leading the

"personhood" ballot measure campaign in Montana is under multiple

investigations for Medicaid fraud.

In a one-sided news story

published in the Daily Inter Lake, Dr.

Ann Bukacek confirmed that state and federal investigators launched the probe

after allegations were raised about the Kalispell, Mont., doctor’s billing

practices and related complaints that she submitted Medicaid reimbursements for

time spent praying with patients.

Bukacek told the newspaper that fraud investigators asked "How much time we spend on it, how

we decide how to pray, how we pray with non-Christians."

She blames a disgruntled former employee for the most recent

investigation which marks a string of four earlier inquiries that began in

April over other unspecified complaints about billing issues. State and federal

authorities declined to comment or even verify the existence of the probes.

Sex. Abortion. Parenthood. Power. The latest news, delivered straight to your inbox. SUBSCRIBE

Bukacek is no stranger to controversy — the seriousness of

the current charges aside.

She is president of the Montana ProLife Coalition which is

again fronting the state’s "personhood" amendment to codify

constitutional rights for fertilized eggs. Their first attempt in 2008 failed

to qualify enough petition signatures to make the ballot. The group has also

agitated for conservatively-allied state lawmakers to sponsor

"personhood" amendments and repeal privacy clauses related to

abortion care. Though the measures passed the state Senate they were ultimately

defeated in the House.

Bukacek also claims to be on the steering committee of the

anti-health reform astroturf group, Coalition to

Protect Patient Rights , that is managed by the Washington, D.C.,

lobbyist firm the DCI Group, best known for its pro-tobacco smokers’ rights

campaigns.

Though her leadership in CPPR could not be confirmed by

independent sources, Bukacek’s husband Roland Horst

appeared in a video for the fake grassroots organization. Horst was

billed as a "medical billing specialist and massage therapist."

Bukacek’s well-established conservative religious beliefs

and opposition to federal health care reform, which she derides as

"Obamacare," are regularly splashed in newspaper guest editorials and

a seemingly endless stream of letters to the editor.

Planted in the Nov. 8 Daily

Inter Lake story are unsubstantiated allegations by unnamed anti-choice

advocates that Bukacek is being targeted because she is an outspoken advocate

for right wing political views.

However, a less sinister reason may come from another Daily Inter Lake sop story printed March 2 that notes a previous

professional dispute over her inappropriate conduct with patients:

Bukacek spent five years at Kalispell

Diagnostic Service but was told she’d have to stop praying with patients or

leave the physician group. She wouldn’t compromise her faith, so she broke away

and began her own practice.

From a practical standpoint, many cash-strapped states are

redoubling their efforts to sniff out Medicaid fraud. Unlike Medicare, the

federal health care entitlement program that covers people over the age of 65

and those with certain disabilities, Medicaid is a joint state-federal funded

program for low-income people.

The Montana Medicaid fraud unit

has recovered $7.8 million since 1993 from convictions for improper

billing, false claims and illegal kickbacks paid to physicians by medical

device and pharmaceutical companies.

If Bukacek is charged and eventually convicted of Medicaid

fraud, she could face up to 10 years in state

prison and a fine not to exceed $50,000 .