An Atlanta man who volunteered to help HIV patients and then used that access to obtain their personal information and defraud Georgia's Medicaid program is headed to prison, state prosecutors said Wednesday.
George Boyd, who operated Northwest Ministry Inc., was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to defrauding Medicaid of more than $300,000 and falsifying documents to hide his crime. He was sentenced Dec. 28.
According to the Secretary of State’s web site, Northwest Ministry was created in 2000 as a non-profit corporation to provide support services for homeless and economically disadvantaged individuals and families. Those services included child care, health care, temporary shelter and help for HIV sufferers.
Boyd claimed that between June 2005 and November 2009, he was providing case management services to HIV patients in DeKalb County, which included getting HIV sufferers to needed medical, social, nutritional and education services.
Prosecutors said Boyd didn’t provide any of those services. Instead, he used HIV patients’ Social Security numbers and personal information to bill Medicaid for services he did not provide.
Some of the personal information was gained by holding charity events, such as a toy giveaway, for HIV patients that required them to provide personal data before they could participate.
In some cases, prosecutors said, Boyd paid HIV patients directly for personal information. He also falsified patient charts as part of the scheme, prosecutors said.
DeKalb Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Coursey ordered Boyd to spend three years of his 15-year sentence in prison and to pay restitution of $284,000.
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