Former Hospital Executives Hired Fake (Homeless) Patients
Posted on 27. Jan, 2010 in News Stories
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Two former owners of City of Angels Medical Center (located in Los Angeles) agreed to pay $10 million to the state and federal government on Tuesday in a consent judgment involving Medicare and Medi-Cal (California’s state medical welfare system) fraud.
Businessman Robert Bourseau and Rudra Sabaratnam, MD, used to own City of Angels Medical Center. Between 2004 and 2007, Bourseau served as the hospital’s chairman, and Dr. Sabaratnam was its CEO. During this time, they paid a recruiter, Estill Mitts, to find homeless people from LA’s Skid Row and bring them to the hospital to fill the beds. Often, ambulances would be used to deliver the homeless “patients” to and from the hospital.
Once there, they received medical treatment, sometimes unnecessarily. Even those with small medical problems (dehydration, yeast infections, etc) were hospitalized two or three days before being sent “home”. The hospital would then bill Medicare and Medi-Cal for the expenses incurred.
For kickbacks of about $20,000 a month, Mitts brought the hospital 30 to 50 homeless “patients” a month. He did this by running a fake “assessment center” in Los Angeles that offered the homeless money, food, and even cigarettes.
The conspiracy unraveled when police began investigating what they initially thought was a case of patient-dumping by hospitals. It’s unclear whether any homeless people were actually harmed during this scheme.
In September 2008, Estill Mitts pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.”
In addition to the consent judgment on Tuesday, Bourseau and Sabaratnam have pleaded guilty to criminal charges of medical claims fraud and giving illegal kickbacks. The hospital’s senior vice president, Dante Nicholson, has also pleaded guilty, facing up to 10 years in prison.
Unfortunately, this scheme wasn’t just limited to the City of Angels Medical Center. During the investigation, police also raided the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center as well as the Tustin Hospital and Medical Center. Executives at those facilities were also charged for similar crimes.
What_The_Heck
Jan 27th, 2010
So much for the Hippocratic Oath. This had nothing to do with helping the sick and everything to do with money. Some people just really suck.
Fay
Jan 28th, 2010
Well these people were not acting as doctors. Yes one of them was a doctor but he was more businessman because he was working administration and probably not seeing patients. Sick homeless patients were still treated by licensed health care workers who probably didn’t know about the crimes at all. Maybe many were treated for problems they really had and they got food and money. It seems more harm was done to the cost of healthcare than to the homeless.