Feds allege $2 billion in California healthcare fraud, 15 charged

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Set us as preferred The Department of Justice announced a sweeping take-down of doctors and others they say lured vulnerable patients into needless surgical procedures, sham treatment programs and bogus hospice care, bilking taxpayers for nearly $2 billion, according to charges released Thursday.Among the most chilling allegations, two Angelenos were charged with paying so-called “body brokers” in Texas to recruit homeless residents from out of state and those in 12-step programs into sham sober living homes in California, where they were allegedly signed up for pricey insurance policies and frequently left to languish in decrepit squats.

“This was not treatment, it was not recovery.It was exploitation,” said Colin McDonald, assistant U.S.

attorney general for the National Fraud Enforcement Division.In another case, an Anaheim cardiothoracic surgeon and a Tarzana chiropractor allegedly teamed up to steer patients into needless and sometimes repeated X-ray guided procedures to score plaque from their arteries in what McDonald called “an assembly line of fraud.” Three more Angelenos were charged with strong-arming local seniors into hospice care when none of them were dying — a form of fraud for which “Los Angeles has become ground zero,” McDonald said.

Prosecutors called it “one of the top dollar take-downs in the state of California.” The Justice Department said in a news release that 15 defendants had been charged, including six medical professionals.Federal authorities said eight people had been arrested, with five of them expected to make their initial appearances this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

Two others were scheduled to appear in the Northern District of Texas, and one in the Northern District of Illinois.It’s unclear whether they are represented by ...