Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, the Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ), and the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor (OIFP) announced that an East Orange, New Jersey, man has been indicted for allegedly filing tens of thousands of false Medicaid claims and receiving over $3.4 million from the program through a company he took over from his deceased sister. Vicente Lopez, 63, was indicted by a state grand jury on September 3, 2025, for healthcare claims fraud (2nd degree), theft by deception (2nd degree), Medicaid fraud (3rd degree), and three counts each of failure to pay tax and filing a fraudulent return (all 3rd degree). According to documents filed in this case, Lopez is the head of Joyce Lopez & Associates (JLA), which at one time provided psychological counseling services to Medicaid beneficiaries. After Joyce Lopez (Vicente Lopez’s sister) died in 2021, Vicente Lopez took sole control of JLA. Lopez allegedly billed or directed his employees to bill Medicaid for psychological services (over 34,000 individual claims) and received approximately $3.4 million from Medicaid, despite that neither he, nor JLA as a company, were approved Medicaid providers.
Lopez allegedly billed or directed his employees to bill under the provider name and number of a licensed psychiatrist, identified as “TF,” without that person’s permission or knowledge. TF did not provide psychotherapy services to a single patient at JLA. Lopez also allegedly billed Medicaid when a patient canceled an appointment or did not show up, and allegedly billed Medicaid for psychological services when JLA was only delivering case management services.