Eye clinic to pay $250,000 for bilking Colorado Medicaid

A Thornton-based eye clinic will pay a $250,000 fine as part of a settlement with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office for bilking the state’s Medicaid program by charging for thousands of corrective lenses it never delivered to patients.

Vista Eye Care is accused of billing the state for two sets of lenses on nearly 3,000 claims while providing only one set to patients. As part of the six-year fraud authorities uncovered, the clinic provided aspherical lenses for children but billed the state for unnecessary spherical lenses that were never created.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the settlement Tuesday.

“We all pay the costs of Medicaid fraud as taxpayers, but the people who are hurt most by Medicaid fraud are the Coloradans who lean on the program to pay for things