Press Release from the State Attorney General's Office

TALLAHASSEE, FL - An Alachua County man has been arrested on charges of practicing medicine without a license, Medicaid fraud, grand theft and
organized scheme to defraud federal and state health care programs. Jorge
Manuel Prieto, 42, was arrested today by law enforcement officers with the
Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit with assistance from the
High Springs Police Department.

A joint investigation conducted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Inspector
General, and the Florida Department of Health revealed numerous instances
when Prieto, who attended medical school in Cuba, provided unlicensed
medical care to patients at High Springs Family Clinic and submitted claims for these unlicensed services to federal and state health care
programs. In one such incident, Prieto allegedly performed outpatient
dermatological surgery on a Medicaid recipient and billed the Medicaid
program for reimbursement as if the procedure had been performed by a
licensed medical professional.

Prieto is charged with 61 counts of Medicaid provider fraud, one count of
grand theft, 13 counts of practicing a health care profession without a
license, and one count of organized scheme to defraud, all third-degree
felonies. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 380 years in prison
and a $380,000 fine. The case will be prosecuted by the State Attorney’s
Office for the Eighth Judicial Circuit.