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Hospitals charged with using homeless to defraud Medicare

Three Southern California hospitals are accused of paying recruiters thousands of dollars a month to find homeless people on Skid Row, give them fake diagnoses and send them to the hospital.

The hospitals then allegedly billed Medicare or Medi-Cal (California?s version of Medicaid) for treatment of the patients? nonexistent conditions.

After a two-year investigation, officials from the FBI and other local, state federal agencies raided three Los Angeles hospitals. The CEO of City of Angels Medical Center was arrested on federal charges, along with a man accused of recruiting the fake patients.

The LA city attorney filed civil charges, claiming the scheme used hundreds or thousands of homeless people ? who were often paid $20 or $30 for their participation ? to bilk millions from the government. The investigation began after a city cop saw what he thought was a routine dumping case but turned out to be part of the alleged scheme.

Read the Los Angeles Times report here.

Full post as published by the 13th juror on August 06, 2008 (boomark / email).