Medical Workers Charged With Fraudulent Billing of Medicare, Medi-Cal

On Friday, authorities arrested two North Hollywood physicians and four clinic employees for allegedly performing tests and procedures on mentally ill homeless individuals and submitting fraudulent bills to government-run insurance plans, the Los Angeles Times reports  (Girion, Los Angeles Times, 10/30).

According to the City Attorney's Office, workers at RSB Medical Group recruited Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries and paid them $100 each. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program (Lin, Los Angeles Daily News, 10/29).

Individuals underwent:

• Abdominal ultrasounds;
• Blood tests; and
• Other procedures.

Each physician saw 30 to 50 patients daily and billed the government as much as $1,000 per patient, according to city officials (Los Angeles Times, 10/30).

The City Attorney's Office said RSB Medical Group billed Medicare and Medi-Cal about $5 million from December 2009 to June 2010.

Investigators said that in June, when Medicare stopped paying some claims, the physicians closed offices in one location and opened other offices under a different name to keep producing claims (Los Angeles Daily News, 10/29).

If convicted, the workers could face up to seven years in prison (Los Angeles Times, 10/30).