GREENSBORO, N.C. — A man who lived in Greensboro and Charlotte has been found guilty for defrauding both North Carolina and South Carolina's Medicaid programs.
Markuetric Stringfellow defrauded both state's Medicaid program and will spend 78 months in prison, NC Attorney General Josh Stein said. Stringfellow has also been ordered to pay $5.2 million as restitution.
“This person cheated the Medicaid program at the expense of our young people and taxpayers.” Attorney General Josh Stein said.
Stringfellow was a partner at Everlasting Vitality, LLC and Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation, which operated afterschool programs in Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Rocky Mount. Between January 2016 and November 2018, Stringfellow and his co-conspirators took illegal kickbacks from drug testing labs in exchange for referring North Carolina Medicaid beneficiaries obtained through the after-school programs, the NCAG's office said.
Stringfellow and his co-conspirators paid people to recruit at-risk youth, particularly those who were Medicaid eligible for these after-school programs. Children who enrolled were required to submit urine specimens for drug testing, which were then submitted to the labs in exchange for kickbacks from the reimbursements paid by Medicaid, officials said in a release.
The group also referred clients to labs they knew would file fraudulent claims and get money based on drug testing services that did not meet the drug testing policy requirements. In some instances, they obtained and then shared clients’ personal information, like names, addresses, dates of birth, and Medicaid beneficiary numbers with the labs. The labs then used their clients’ information to submit drug test claims to Medicaid that were fraudulent because, among other reasons, the drug tests were not medically necessary, or the urine specimens were not from the Medicaid beneficiaries under whose names they were submitted, according to officials.
In South Carolina, Stringfellow similarly defrauded the South Carolina Medicaid program by filing false claims for services that were either not provided, partially provided, or did not qualify for reimbursement, Stein said.