Nursing care service provider Comsn Inc. was engaged in improper practices, including filing fraudulent applications to obtain operating licenses, in 19 prefectures, according to a survey of prefectural investigations.

Comsn, a nursing care unit of Goodwill Group Inc., also received a total of 430 million yen in benefits inappropriately in 11 prefectures under the national nursing care insurance program.

The amount of inappropriate benefits is likely to increase because more than half of the 47 prefectures have yet to complete their investigations into Comsn's operations.

The 11 prefectures — Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aomori, Miyagi, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamanashi, Nagano, Hyogo, Okayama and Kagawa — are likely to ask Comsn to return the money.

The central government has decided to terminate the operating licenses of nearly 80 percent of the nursing care centers run by Comsn because the firm filed fraudulent applications to obtain some of the licenses.

In Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Comsn was found to have operated a nursing center without care workers for four months after opening the facility in December 2005. The Tochigi Prefectural Government plans to ask Comsn to return about 9.5 million yen that the Utsunomiya facility had received.

In Nagano, a Comsn care center falsified the names of nurses in an application for a license and unfairly received 2.4 million yen. In Kanagawa, Kagawa and Saga prefectures, Comsn falsely listed care workers as full-time staff to obtain nursing care service licenses even though they were not working for the company.

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