A conspiracy of soulless monsters preyed upon our most vulnerable citizens and worse often gave these people treatments they didn’t need in an effort to suck extra money from the government teat. From The Los Angeles Times:
On a Sunday afternoon two years ago, five homeless people being dropped off on Los Angeles’ skid row by an ambulance caught the attention of police officers.
The officers videotaped what they thought was a case of hospitals dumping patients in a section of the city where few would notice or care.
But as investigators began to unravel the incident, they say they found something far different: a massive scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services.
The elaborate enterprise churned thousands of indigents through hospitals over the last four years and billed Medicare and Medi-Cal for costly and unjustified medical procedures, federal, state and local investigators said Wednesday.
Those involved in the alleged conspiracy “ranged from street-level operatives to the chief executive of a hospital,” U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien said.
After raids on three hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties Wednesday, one hospital chief executive faces criminal charges and executives at two other facilities were accused of fraudulent business practices in a related civil lawsuit filed by Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.
Some of the homeless patients involved received tests or treatments that were potentially harmful, authorities said.
Authorities said they were shocked by the “depravity” of the scheme and go on to recount several incidents where people’s lives were in danger from unneeded treatments, including a woman who received a Nitro patch for a non-existent heart condition which caused her blood pressure to drop to life threatening levels.
I however am not shocked by any amount of depravity when it comes to the sanctimonious “non-profit” industry whose main goal has always been to milk the country of money using the good works of we few who were dedicated to the ideals of selfless service.
h/t Crime Scene KC