A northeast Georgia woman is to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Gainesville Wednesday, Aug. 22, following her conviction earlier this year on Medicare and Medicaid fraud charges.
Matilda Lynn Prince of Mineral Bluff was convicted in January by a federal jury in Gainesville of twenty-nine counts of health care fraud for filing fraudulent claims with Medicare and the Georgia Medicaid program. According to the U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta, Prince filed claims for optometry and ophthalmology services that were never provided to patients.
“Prince stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Medicare and Medicaid programs by submitting fraudulent claims for services that were not performed,” U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak said at the time of her conviction. “Through our partnership with the Georgia Attorney General’s office, we will continue to fight the costly effects of health care fraud in this state that divert critical resources away from citizens who truly need these services.”
According to Pak, the charges and other information presented in court: Prince owned Pickens Eye Clinic in Jasper and operated Eye Gallery 20/20 in Calhoun. From September 2011 to February 2014, she submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for optometry and ophthalmology services that were never provided to patients.
