An embattled Centerville adoption agency will lose its license after a Department of Human Services investigation found the agency took on a new client and altered files in the days after the agency put them on notice for alleged violations of their billing and record keeping practices.
DHS officials notified Heart and Soul Adoptions on Wednesday that they were revoking the agency’s license after finding multiple violations of the Utah Administrative Code, according to the Notice of Agency Action.
The agency is slated to lose its license Feb. 10, barring an appeal. When asked for comment, the agency’s owner Denise Garza declined.
DHS spokeswoman Heather Barnum said the department decided to revoke Heart and Soul’s license after concluding agency officials weren’t working toward compliance after the department issued its previous notice of action.
Without a license, the agency can’t provide any adoption services, must transfer clients to a new program and notify current and past clients of their license revocation, according to the notice.
The agency received a notice Oct. 6 that their license had been put on conditional status because of a “lack of transparency in billing practices and insufficient record keeping practices” that could “allow for harm or fraud.”
The conditional status — which indicates a license could be revoked if alleged violations aren’t remedied — prevented the agency from working with new clients, though they could continue to work with their current clients.
They were also required to “demonstrate good faith efforts” to comply with the applicable rules and statutes, and other terms of the notice, such as notifying clients of their new licensing statues and creating new policies to address the alleged violations.
Since that notice, the investigation reportedly found the agency had accepted at least one new client and had altered multiple forms “to reflect dates pre-dating” the last notice of agency action.
The investigation also concluded that the agency didn’t post their new licensing status on the homepage of their website within five days of the notice and failed to notify at least two adoptive families, among other alleged violations.
The notice of conditional licensing status was on the agency’s website Friday, but there was no indication of DHS’s most recent action on the website. According to the notice, the agency must immediately post the new action on the homepage of their website and social media pages.
The agency was first put on notice for 14 violations, including charging adoptive parents for a birth mothers’ medical bills, despite the birth mother receiving Medicaid for those expenses; failing to itemize fees and charges of adoptive parents; and in some cases failing to search to see whether a baby’s biological father — or someone without legal ties to a child who claims to be the biological father — was registered in the putative father registry, which gives fathers certain rights, such as petition for adoption.
Once an agency’s license is revoked, they cannot apply for another license for five years, Barnum said.
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