LOS ANGELES — A hospital top executive was arrested Wednesday as federal agents raided three medical centers while investigating an alleged scheme to recruit homeless people as phony patients and bill government programs for millions of dollars in unnecessary health services, authorities said.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the city said the hospitals used homeless people as “human pawns.” More charges are expected, a U.S. prosecutor said.
The hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties submitted phony Medicare and Medi-Cal bills for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homeless patients — including drug addicts and the mentally ill — recruited from downtown’s Skid Row, authorities alleged.
The investigation was sparked in 2006 by an L.A. police investigation of reports that hospitals were dumping homeless patients on the streets.
