A California lawmaker says “something needs to be done” about widespread medical fraud in the state’s workers’ compensation system and has called on a state commission to launch an in-depth review.
Southern California prosecutors have filed a new round of charges against medical providers who care for the state’s injured workers, raising further questions about state oversight of the program that covers 15 million people.
In many ways, scamming the health system meant to heal California’s injured workers is just too easy. Case documents reveal gaping holes in the state’s strategy to prevent fraud.
In this episode, Reveal delves into the rampant fraud in California’s workers’ compensation medical system and the reasons it has been such an easy target for scammers.
A review of thousands of criminal court records shows a workers’ compensation system in which pay-to-play schemes trump patient care, particularly in unregulated treatments rejected by insurers and disputed in obscure courts.
Every time Ginger and Jim Wright visited their son Derek, who has autism, at Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center in New Hampshire, he would repeat, over and over, “No Lakeview. No Lakeview.”
California prosecutors are brokering plea deals in more than 11 criminal cases as health leaders overhaul the state’s fraud-ridden drug rehabilitation system after our Rehab Racket series with CNN.
Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center originally was part of a national chain of brain injury rehab centers called New Medico, owned by Charles Brennick of Boston. An FBI investigation in the 1990s led to the eventual collapse of New Medico, but the Brennicks’ neurorehab business lived on.
