ATLANTA, Ga. — The head of Georgia’s Medicaid fraud unit will help steer the national association of state fraud investigators for the next year, Attorney General Chris Carr announced Tuesday.
Jim Mooney, the deputy attorney general in charge of Georgia’s Medicaid Fraud and Patient Protection Division, was chosen as vice president of NAMFCU, the national association of state Medicaid fraud control units. North Carolina’s unit director, F. Edward Kirby Jr., was elected president, giving the two neighboring states the top two posts. Carr and North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson made the announcement jointly.
In his statement, Carr described Medicaid fraud as theft from taxpayers that weakens a program built for vulnerable residents. He credited the Georgia division with protecting older and disabled adults, prosecuting providers and closing unlicensed personal care homes that put residents at risk.
Mooney has led the Georgia division since June 2023, according to his biography on the attorney general’s website. A prosecutor with the office since 2013, he has tried health care fraud cases in both state and federal courts and has been cross-designated as a federal prosecutor in each of Georgia’s three U.S. court districts. He was the division’s No. 2 before taking over. Mooney studied economics at Notre Dame and earned his law degree at UGA.
The national association dates to 1978 and represents the fraud units of every state plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Those units recovered more than $2 billion through criminal and civil cases in federal fiscal year 2025 and won 1,185 convictions, returning $4.64 for each grant dollar spent.
Georgia’s division runs on a federal grant of $5,816,722 for fiscal 2027, which covers 75% of its budget, with the state paying the remaining $1,938,924. Federal health officials, through the inspector general for Health and Human Services, oversee every state unit.
Georgians who suspect Medicaid fraud can reach the division by phone at 404-458-2878, and a reporting form is posted on the attorney general’s website.
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