Two El Paso dental clinics are involved in a multimillion dollar lawsuit settlement.Smile Magic Dental Clinic was accused of defrauding Texas Medicaid.
In March, they were ordered to pay $4.5 million to thestate as a settlement.Four offices were named in the lawsuit, including both El Paso locations.
One is on the 5100 block of Montana Avenue near Chelsea Street in Central El Paso and the other is on the 500 block of Zaragoza Road in the Lower Valley.
A news release issued by the legal firm representing the whistleblower, a former human resources director, claimed Smile Magic performed unnecessary or excessive dental services on young children and billed Medicaid for the work.
The whistleblower also claimed the clinic paid recruiters to round up children in grocery store parking lots and at bus stops and bring them into clinics, and that parents were paid to sign up their children for treatment.
ABC-7 spoke over the phone to Smile Magic’s owner, Dr. Chad Evans, who denied the claims.”None of those were true,” he said. “The investigation didn’t find anything along those lines. The settlement had nothing to do with the things you just mentioned.”
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