Nutritionist with an office in Ridgewood sentenced to 2 years probation for health care fraud
August 05, 2013
the staff of the Ridgemwood blog
Ridgewood NJ, A Ridgewood New Jersey nutritionist will not have to serve any jail time for falsely claiming thousands of dollars from insurance companies for counseling services that never took place.
Azadeh Ahmadi was sentenced Friday to two years probation and was ordered to pay $22,134 in restitution. Ahmadi pleaded guilty to health care fraud. Authorities say the fraud occurred between May 2005 and June 2007 and Ahmadi was initially was indicted on two counts of health care fraud and two counts of theft by deception
Authorities say the 43-year-old Ahmadi, with offices in Ridgewood and Passaic, billed insurers for bogus nutritional counseling and tests to several patients with diabetes.
Views differ on goals for Ridgewood school budget
Tuesday August 6, 2013, 9:37 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) members have been discussing ways to increase public support for the 2014-2015 school budget.
In September, they will decide whether that means publicly exploring a spending plan with less than the state-mandated 2 percent tax hike.
On July 22, a first discussion about that possibility was initiated by BOE Vice President Vince Loncto.
Loncto said he wanted to see the BOE “identify things that would be necessary to do” if faced with lower revenue. Exploring these options at public meetings – as well as the accompanying “implications” – could help “generate more full-scale community support,” he noted.
Obamacare months behind in testing IT data security: government
By Sharon Begley
NEW YORK | Tue Aug 6, 2013 4:24pm EDT
(Reuters) – The federal government is months behind in testing data security for the main pillar of Obamacare: allowing Americans to buy health insurance on state exchanges due to open by October 1
The missed deadlines have pushed the government’s decision on whether information technology security is up to snuff to exactly one day before that crucial date, the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general said in a report.
As a result, experts say, the exchanges might open with security flaws or, possibly but less likely, be delayed.
“They’ve removed their margin for error,” said Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the non-profit Center for Democracy & Technology. “There is huge pressure to get (the exchanges) up and running on time, but if there is a security incident they are done. It would be a complete disaster from a PR viewpoint.”
The most likely serious security breach would be identity theft, in which a hacker steals the social security numbers and other information people provide when signing up for insurance.
The inspector general’s report, released without fanfare last Friday, found that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or CMS – the agency within HHS that is running Obamacare – had set a May 13 deadline for its contractor to deliver a plan to test the security of the crucial information technology component.
Colo. town poised to declare open season on drones, issue drone-hunting licenses
Deer Trail, Colo., is poised to fire a warning shot at the domestic drone industry.
The small town of fewer than 600 people will become the first in the nation to encourage its residents to shoot down the unmanned vehicles if a drone-hunting ordinance passes at Tuesday night’s town council meeting.
In preparation for Tuesday night’s vote, at least 157 people already have signed up for a “drone hunting license,” which costs $25, according to Denver television station CBS-4.
If the ordinance passes, as local officials expect, residents of Deer Trail with a license legally could shoot drones out of the sky. The town plans to offer cash rewards — dubbed “trophies” by local drone opponents — for each downed craft.
“Right now we don’t have drones flying in our skies. We want to keep it that way. … If you don’t want your drone to go down, don’t fly in town. That’s our motto,” Phillip Steel, a Deer Trail resident who drafted the ordinance, told CBS
Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/6/colo-town-poised-declare-open-season-drones/#ixzz2bEAN04fR
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Newark, New Jersey voted the worlds most unfriendly city
Newark, New Jersey was voted the worst, with one reader saying she “ran into a lot of rude people there” and others arguing the only reason to visit was for a cheap stopover on the way to somewhere better.
The world’s friendliest – and unfriendliest – cities named
LOOKING for the most welcoming places in the world to visit? It turns out you don’t have to look very far.
Travel magazine Conde Nast Traveler has unveiled the results of its readers choice survey on the world’s friendliest cities, with two Australian destinations making a list of the top 10.
Scroll down for the list
Hobart was beaten to the top spot only by the ‘Island of Magic’, Florianopolis in Brazil. It’s a city described as having “outgoing locals, gorgeous views and an excellent airport”.
Meanwhile, the Tasmanian capital, which was also recently named one of the world’s best cities to visit in 2013 by Lonely Planet, was praised for its ‘unique location, beauty and kind, friendly city natives’.
“They know how to treat visitors,” one commenter said. Another described it as “one of the best places I’ve visited”.
The second Aussie destination to make the top 10 list, Margaret River tied with Paro, Bhutan, for sixth place and was praised for its vineyards and beaches.
A Conde Nast Traveler spokesperson said: “It’s no wonder this small town, just south of Perth on Australia’s west coast, ranked high in the friendliest category: It’s known for excellent vineyards and plenty of surfing; who wouldn’t be happy? Our readers also praised the town’s ambience and restaurants.”
Sparks fly in bipartisan push to merge sheriff, police offices
Tuesday, August 6, 2013 Last updated: Tuesday August 6, 2013, 7:38 AM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Three of the four Republicans running for office in Bergen County government this November called Monday for consolidating the County Police into the Sheriff’s Department, re-igniting an issue that has been out of the public eye for nearly a year.
It came as no surprise that Freeholders John Mitchell and John Felice and Sheriff Michael Saudino came out in support of the merger. All three also backed the idea in October, when a plan to merge the two departments narrowly missed approval by what was then a Republican-controlled freeholder board.
But a press release on Monday touted “a Republican plan for consolidation,” which infuriated some Democrats. They said the current Democratic freeholder majority has been working with all three Republicans since January to craft a bipartisan merger plan.
Democratic freeholders criticized the Republican statement as vague and suspiciously similar to one they have been drafting.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) workers at Rite Aid in Ridgewood face huge increases in medical insurance premiums
Labor Unions’ Latest Problem: Obamacare’s ‘Cadillac Tax’ Harms Their Gold-Plated Health Insurance Plans
Avik Roy, Contributor
Last month, we discussed the stunning turnabout from leaders of prominent labor unions, who stated that “unintended consequences” from Obamacare were “causing nightmare scenarios” that would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.” But those were the complaints from private-sector unions. Now, we learn that public-sector unions, representing government employees, are hopping mad about a different aspect of our health law: its steep excise tax on costly health insurance plans, also known as the “Cadillac tax.”
Economists of all stripes have long argued that the original sin of the U.S. health-care system was a World War II decision to exempt health benefits from wartime wage controls. That exemption was later incorporated into the tax code, whereby health benefits did not count as taxable income. A dollar in normal wages might turn into 50 cents after you take out federal income taxes, local income taxes, and payroll taxes. But a dollar in health benefits is still a dollar, giving workers a huge incentive to get health insurance from their employers, but making them insensitive to the cost of that coverage, since they don’t shop for it themselves.
Obamacare’s Cadillac tax is a clumsy attempt to address this problem. And it’s clumsy for one principal reason: labor unions were adamantly hostile to it.
Six car burglaries reported in Washington Township over last two weeks
Monday August 5, 2013, 3:25 PM
BY KIMBERLY REDMOND
MANAGING EDITOR
Pascack Valley Community Life
Two more car burglaries have been reported to Township of Washington police, bringing the number of break-ins over the past two weeks up to six.
Sometime during the overnight hours of Sunday, Aug. 4 into Monday, Aug. 5, an iPod was stolen from an unlocked vehicle parked outside an Elf Hill Court home, according to Detective Sgt. John Calamari.
Fiver days earlier, police were contacted by a Katharina Place resident whose car was entered between the overnight of Wednesday, July 31 into Thursday, Aug. 1, he said. A GPS, iPad and headphones were reported missing from the vehicle, which, Calamari noted, was also unlocked.
Township police are working to determine whether the most recent burglaries are connected to ones that occurred during the past two weeks, the sergeant said.
IP 24.228.128.248 Submitted on 2013/08/05 at 6:36 pm
Ok dipshit we get it. You bought a cheap house next to Valley. How about sticking to the FACTS. Trauma centers are regulated by the state. Since Hackensack , sEwark,Jersey city and Trenton have more low-lifes shooting each other, that is where they trauma centers are located. In Ridgewood, we might have some dummy wearing a suit throw his blackberry at someone, which doesn’t require a trauma center.
IP 24.228.128.248 Submitted on 2013/08/05 at 6:32 pm
Of course the anti-valley kool-aid drinkers ignore all the other construction projects-why? Simple.. they’re a bunch of NIMBYs. Now they want to fan the fires with unrealistic scare tactics. Interestingly they were noticeably absent with the Willard construction , train station construction, west side water tank construction etc/ So when its time for ‘payback’, don’t expect those who got ZERO support from you when things impacted THEIR backyards to line up with you. You should have thought about that when you chose to call others ‘nimbys’. BFD, with the shadow of the new Valley you wont be able to tan in your yard. Go to graydoN!
Reader says time to end Mayor’s Monthly Column in the Ridgewood News
Seriously, whether you like our mayor or don’t, Boyd has a very good point. Why should the newspaper provide a forum for Mayor Aronsohn to highlight the accomplishments while ignoring the major problems? This is a non-partisan government, so there cannot be an official reply from those opposed to the leader’s views on things. But we do know that at least one letter in which Mayor Aronsohn was not being portrayed favorably was squelched by the newspaper…….and this was due to the mayor himself interfering.
I wish the Mayor would man-up and address all the issues that have been controversial and have not been resolved. For example……what ever happened to the Graydon Ramp? For example…….what is the resolution on the Christie fundraiser (even The Record wrote an editorial blasting the council’s attendance at this event). For example…..why was a personnel matter (Mr. Riche) discussed in open session when there is a strict policy that individuals are to be discussed in closed session? Lines of people jumped up to protest his actions on this, yet no apology or explanation ever came from him. I am betting that the Hope Street poles will be the same thing, never any official follow-up from him because the outcome is not good.
He sweeps controversy under the carpet and we never get a final report on these matters. The Mayor’s Column in the newspaper enables him to continue to do this, by painting a rosy picture with absolutely no space allocated to controversies and problems.
Global terror alert inconsistent with U.S. portrayal of weakened al Qaida
By Hannah Allam and Lesley Clark | McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s sweeping response to an alleged al Qaida plot – closing diplomatic posts in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia – suggests a terrorist organization that’s capable of striking virtually anywhere, not the one U.S. officials have depicted as a group that’s near defeat.
Counterterrorism analysts said Monday that the U.S. government’s global response to a threat emanating from Yemen, home to al Qaida’s most active affiliate, was at odds with how dismissive President Barack Obama was in a speech in May, when he said that “not every collection of thugs that labels themselves as al Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.
Digital Set to Surpass TV in Time Spent with US Media
Mobile helps propel digital time spent
Average time spent with digital media per day will surpass TV viewing time for the first time this year, according to eMarketer’s latest estimate of media consumption among US adults.
The average adult will spend over 5 hours per day online, on nonvoice mobile activities or with other digital media this year, eMarketer estimates, compared to 4 hours and 31 minutes watching television. Daily TV time will actually be down slightly this year, while digital media consumption will be up 15.8%.
The most significant growth area is on mobile. Adults will spend an average of 2 hours and 21 minutes per day on nonvoice mobile activities, including mobile internet usage on phones and tablets—longer than they will spend online on desktop and laptop computers, and nearly an hour more than they spent on mobile last year.
Village of Ridgewood employee injured in fall at pumping station
August 5,2013
Boyd A. Loving
2:18 PM
Ridgewood NJ, A Village of Ridgewood employee was injured while working at a waste water pumping station near Hawes School on Monday morning. Ridgewood PD, FD, EMS, and paramedics from The Valley Hospital all responded to assist the victim. The injuries were reportedly non life threatening and resulted from a fall. The victim was transported by ambulance to The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood for evaluation and treatment.
What’s the first word or phrase that pops into your head when you think of Chris Christie?
In a new Monmouth University poll, the most popular answer had nothing to do with his political party, or his blunt attitude, or his performance following Superstorm Sandy.
Governor Chris Christie (Jeff Zelevansky, Getty Images)
Respondents mentioned Christie’s weight more than anything else. Answers ranged from “big” to “fat.” Some folks simply said the word “weight.”
Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said Christie’s size will definitely be an issue in the future if he decides to run for president.
Editorial: The N.J. swindle – From watered down booze to crooked politicians, fraud is pervasive
Scams are nothing new. They’re as old as humanity, stretching back to the Garden of Eden where the serpent enticed Eve to eat of the apple.
They’re as current as the morning e-mail with its promises of instant weight loss, incredible virility and $1 million from the rightful heir to the throne of Ambazonia for just a small token of trust, viz. a money order for $10,000.
Con artists do a brisk and predatory trade with a thousand variations on the basic theme of fleecing the unsuspecting. Posing as grandchildren stranded in another country, they call older people and plead for immediate cash to post bail. That scam made the rounds in Ewing earlier this year.
You may have gotten a call from a “technician” claiming to be with Microsoft seeking access to your computer and credit card information. Phishing scams are legion, of course, as are countless swindles, stings and rip-offs.
