Georgia man to pay $5M in restitution for Medicaid fraud

Updated: 6:22 PM EST Feb 27, 2021
WXII12.com Web Staff
A Georgia man was sentenced to more than six years in prison for defrauding the North and South Carolina Medicaid programs Saturday.Markeutric Stringfellow, 37, will spend 6.5 years in prison and then 3 years on supervised release, and must pay restitution of $5,278,550, according to attorneys. In North Carolina, Springfellow was a resident of both Charlotte and Greensboro, according to filed court documents. He was also a partner in Everlasting Vitality, LLC (EV) and Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation (D4H).D4H operated after-school programs in Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Rocky-Mount, according to attorneys. From Jan. 7, 2016, through Nov. 12, 2018, Stringfellow and his co-conspirators used D4H to defraud the North Carolina Medicaid system.According to court documents, the group paid people to recruit at-risk children who were Medicaid eligible for after-school programs. Once they were enrolled, they had to take drug tests at laboratories predetermined by Stringfellow. Because of deals set up, Stringfellow and his co-conspirators received kickbacks for the drug tests in the names of the children.Stringfellow and his conspirators also worked with laboratories they knew would file false claims to receive reimbursements for drug tests in North Carolina, according to courts. Using personal information from D4H or EV, the labs would file drug tests that weren't necessary for the children, or use the children's names but urine that was not theirs. When Medicaid reimbursed the children for the lab tests, Springfellow and the labs agreed on a percentage split.“This person cheated the Medicaid program at the expense of our young people and taxpayers,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said. “My office will hold accountable businesses and people when they commit fraud.”In South Carolina, Springfellow was a franchise owner f Wrights Care Services LLC (Wrights Care), a qualified provider of behavioral health rehabilitative services, according to court documents.Starting around 2014, court documents show Springfellow and his conspirators began filing false claims for services that were either not provided, partially provided, or did not qualify for reimbursement. To support reimbursement, documents show Springfellow filed false patient billing records and false medical notes. When Springfellow and the people he was working with realized they were going to be audited around March 2015, the group met in Columbia to create false billing records, forge signatures and falsify records for the audit, documents showed attorneys. These documents were given to auditors.In July of 2020, Springfellow's case was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. Springfellow pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud in connection to both federal prosecutions on Aug. 21, 2020.Springfellow will serve his term in prison at a federal prison, according to attorneys.

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