NASHVILLE – Yet another Bridgeport, Alabama, resident stands accused of TennCare fraud, bringing to seven the total number of people from the tiny Northeast Alabama town facing charges of defrauding the state’s Medicaid program.
Tennessee’s Office of Inspector General and the Marion County, Tennessee, sheriff’s department say Crystal Price, 36, of Bridgeport, was charged with falsely reporting her residence to obtain TennCare health insurance coverage.
An indictment returned by a Marion County grand jury charges Price with TennCare fraud and theft of services over $2,500 but less than $10,000.
Authorities say Price fraudulently reported her residency was in Tennessee to appear eligible for the $12 billion state and federally funded TennCare insurance program, which provides health care to some 1.3 million Tennesseans, many of them low-income pregnant women, children and elderly or disabled people.
“Providing false information in order to receive TennCare benefits is a crime,” Tennessee’s Inspector General Kim Harmon said in a news release Tuesday. “We work hard to preserve TennCare resources for those truly in need.”