Greensboro woman pleads guilty in $1.7 million Medicaid fraud scheme
A Greensboro treatment center owner admitted billing Medicaid for urine tests that were never done, with claims topping $1.7 million over nearly two years.
Gwendolyn Singleton, 55, of Greensboro, pleaded guilty July 9 to health care fraud after federal prosecutors said Joelle’s Center of Hope billed North Carolina Medicaid for urine drug tests that were never performed.
Singleton owned and operated the Greensboro business, which advertised substance abuse treatment programs. Prosecutors said the claims were submitted between June 2021 and March 2023 and totaled more than $1.7 million, with one local report putting the disputed billing at approximately $1,735,865.
The plea was announced by U.S. Attorney Dan Bishop and North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson. Federal officials said the case centered on claims sent to the Medicaid program for urine testing that never happened, a type of billing that can drain public health dollars meant for legitimate care.
That matters in Guilford County because Medicaid is a lifeline for patients who rely on community providers for addiction treatment, behavioral health services and routine medical care. When a clinic or treatment center submits false claims, the money does not stay with patients or pay for real services. It is pulled from a public program that is financed by state and federal dollars and meant to cover treatment for low-income families, children and people with disabilities.
The facts prosecutors laid out also show some of the common warning signs investigators look for in health care billing fraud. One is billing repeatedly for a service that should be tied to a real patient need, such as urine drug testing in substance use treatment. Another is a large volume of claims over a long stretch of time, especially when the business model depends on services that can be easy to bill but hard for patients to verify. A third is billing for procedures that were never performed at all.
The case also fits a broader enforcement push in North Carolina, where federal prosecutors have brought multiple urine drug testing fraud cases in recent years. It comes as the Justice Department said its 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown produced charges against 455 defendants and involved more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims nationwide.
For Guilford County, Singleton’s guilty plea puts a local name and address on a fraud scheme that reached into one of the state’s largest public health programs and raises the same question investigators keep finding in health care fraud cases: who is billing for care that never happened, and how long did it go on before anyone stopped it?
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