Hospital chain to pay $16.5 million in kickback case involving the homeless

A California-based hospital chain has agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle allegations that its hospitals were involved in a kickback scheme in which homeless people were taken to hospitals for sometimes unneeded treatment, and government programs were billed for the work, authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles Doctor's Hospital, Inc., agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal through the payment of illegal kickbacks to "marketers" who recruited people to act as patients, the U.S. attorney for central California said in a news release.

LADH is a subsidiary of Pacific Health Corp., which has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities.

In the agreements filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, LADH and PCH admitted that from 2003 to 2008 they and the three PCH hospitals paid more than $2.3 million in kickbacks to "marketers" to recruit people to act as patients, the statement said. They were treated, even if they did not need treatment, the news release said.

full: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/24/health/homeless-kickbacks/index.html