Federal agents have raided three private for-profit hospitals — Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, City of Angels Medical Center, and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center in Orange County — in connection with an alleged fraud scheme involving federal Medicaid and state Medi-Cal health insurance programs. Agents arrested Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, owner and chief executive of City of Angels Medical Center, and Estill Mitts, who is accused of recruiting patients from his Skid Row storefront church, the 7th Street Christian Day Center. Mr. Mitts posted $25,000 bond and is confined to his home. Dr. Sabaratnam posted $700,000 bail Thursday night.
In a 21-count grand jury indictment, the men are charged with conspiring to take and receive kickbacks for referrals and to commit health care fraud. Mr. Mitts is also charged with money laundering and tax evasion.
Skid Row residents said the ambulances arrived each morning heralded by hospital patient recruiters who offered food, cigarettes and sometimes cash, to the homeless people who call these grimy downtown sidewalks home. Patients were paid as much as $30, court papers say…After the trips to the hospitals, vans dropped off their recruits at the same Skid Row street corners, court papers said.
Also implicated in county and federal court papers were John Fenton, chief executive of Los Angeles Doctors Hospital Corporation, a subsidiary of Pacific Health Corporation that owns Los Angeles Metropolitan and Tustin hospitals; Daniel Davis, chief executive of Tustin; and Robert Borseau, an owner of Intercare Health Systems, which owns City of Angels. More arrests are expected, said Mr. Delgadillo, the city attorney.
These hustlers kept their hospital beds permanently “occupied”. Not with non-existent patients; but with real people whose identities were scraped from the streets where they actually lived.
This is impossible! These are government run programs. Everybody knows these programs are the answers to our nation’s problems so how could something like this happen?
Perhaps we should nationalize all the hospitals. That will stop the waste and the fraud.
Just don’t allow them to be run by Republicans… 🙂
#1–Tom==you are a dipshit but on the right track. The fraud came/comes from doctors, so nationalizing the doctors “could” go a long way in curbing this kind of fraud.
I agree with you taking the “profit” out of medicine would be a laudable goal.
What did they expect? The Government is involved. Government and incompetency go hand in hand.
You know, Bobbo, I made a decision to ignore your written anal seepages long ago but I’ll make an exception just this once, then that will be all.
Let’s see . . . would I take a job where there was no chance of making the profit I feel I am entitled to? Hmm. I don’t it see it happening.
Profit is what motivates people to do a better job. Without the lure of exchanging your better ideas for money there is no incentive to succeed. Turn your workforce into slaves at the point of a gun and you will only get the bare minimum. Laudable? I think not. Laughable, maybe.
Yes, these guys are criminals but you are missing the point. The point is the government has this really big bureaucratic trough called “medicare/medicaid.” All large bureaucracies are easy pickings for con men. Is anyone really surprised these programs are just as susceptible to fraud as anything else?
Medicare fraud accounts for nearly 15% of it annual budget. 15%! And that doesn’t count the cost of all the FBI agents and court costs it takes to find and prosecute the criminals. It’s about $165/yr/person in the US. Personally, I would like to have my $165 back, please.
Yeah, we need more bureaucracies.
#4, well that’s not an especially useful post.
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Since the government forces hospitals to eat the costs of providing emergency services in many cases, I’m not surprised when they try to get the money in other ways.
#5, Tom,
Profit is what motivates people to do a better job.
Is it? Maybe for you. Actually, money is NOT a prime motivator. Many people have left well paying jobs for next to no money in order to be happy. If people are happy in their job, they are more productive. A small group of people worship money to the point they enjoy the mere tallying more than any benefits it brings.
Yes, these guys are criminals but you are missing the point. The point is the government has this really big bureaucratic trough called “medicare/medicaid.”
And they do a relative good job. Yes some people try to steal money. That isn’t the fault of Medicare though. Blame the thieves, not the victims.
A quick check did not reveal any substantiated numbers on Medicare fraud. Where you got your numbers from I don’t know. How someone derived 15% of their budget should have been explained. If you want your 15% back, I would like the amount of my taxes paid to KBR, Haliburton, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and others.
Is it? Maybe for you.
It is for the majority of people. Would you do the same job you are doing now for half what you are being paid? Would you take a job that paid twice as much as you make now if you could be just as happy?
http://tinyurl.com/6jzu6n
There is a line: “Job satisfaction rises according to income.” Granted, there are those who don’t necessarily need money, but saying “profit motivates people” is a true statement. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t leave a job they are happy with for another job they could be just as happy with that paid more.
Where you got your numbers from?
Various places (search for medicare fraud losses). I found the budgets and I found the losses and did some simple math and took the number in the middle. Someone should lose their job over this. This is what I’ve been saying all along — the government is incapable of running a large bureaucracy because the government is controlled by special interests.
If you want your 15% back, I would like the amount of my taxes paid to KBR, Haliburton, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and others.
ME, TOO!!!!
TomB,
You deserve credit for posting a link for your “Job Satisfaction” study. But asking if people are happy is not the same as inspiring or motivating them to be more productive. Satisfaction is not the same as enthusiasm. I spent quite a bit of time with employee motivation, but that was too many years ago and all my material is packed away. And there is very little chance I’ll pull it out.
What I did do was a quick search and Wikipedia has a very good, relatively fair article on Job Satisfaction and another on Motivation.
In short, money at best is a short term motivator. Once the person has the money it will no longer be a motivator unless they fall to dire straights. (see Mazlow) Why? Because most people believe they are worth more than their employer thinks they are.(see Herzberg) Money can end up being a great disincentive if one becomes aware that another, equal or less capable person, is paid more.
I could go into much more depth but if you want to know more I suggest you read both Wiki articles. They are more up to date for something I am not an expert in. An excellent book is The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a fictionalized account of why a business is in business.
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You deserve a big raspberry for suggesting I google where you got your numbers from. Medicare doesn’t publish anything suggesting how much is fraud. Everything else was a guess.
From what I see, and there are still no official estimates that I’ve seen, Medicare/Medicaid account for about $700 B. The estimates of fraud run from $60 to 30 B. That is less than 5 to 10%. Whatever, that is still a very large chunk of money.
I will go back to my original point. We shouldn’t blame the victim for the robbery. If Medicare didn’t pay quickly, providers would be screaming foul. And quite rightly too. In my opinion, that leaves Medicare in the awkward position of needing to pay before each provider / situation has been adequately vetted.