by Andrew Murray | September 25th, 2019
On August 16, 2019, North Carolina’s Attorney General announced the sentence for a Greensboro-based medical transport company. The Attorney General’s press release states:
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Attorney General Josh Stein today announced that Gate City Transportation Inc., a Greensboro-based medical transport company, was sentenced in the Middle District of North Carolina after pleading guilty to one count of health care fraud in October 2018. The company was ordered to pay a $100 fine, a $400 special assessment, and restitution in the amount of $5,245,640.02 to the N.C. Fund for Medical Assistance.
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In April 2008, Gate City Transportation enrolled with the North Carolina Medicaid program as an ambulance provider, owning and operating convalescent ambulances that provided non-emergency transportation to stretcher-bound patients.
From November 2010 to February 2015, the company stopped operating these ambulances and instead began providing non-emergency van transportation to ambulatory and wheelchair-bound clients. It did so without getting approval from the county Division of Social Services to provide the van transportation. The majority of Gate City Transportation’s clients in that time period were Medicaid recipients. The company continued submitting Medicaid claims using ambulance codes, even though it wasn’t operating ambulance services, because they are reimbursed at a higher rate. The false claims defrauded the Medicaid program out of more than $5 million.
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