From: drarwingnuttephd@gmail.com   
      
   FBI raids ambulance company; related to kickback scheme lawsuit?   
      
   L.A.-based ProCare Mobile Response was named earlier this year as an alleged   
   co-conspirator in a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that an illegal kickback   
   scheme bilked millions of dollars from Medicare and Medi-Cal.   
      
      
   BY BERNARD WOLFSON / STAFF WRITER   
           
   Published: Oct. 21, 2014 Updated: Oct. 22, 2014 7:48 a.m.   
      
   Federal agents on Tuesday raided the offices of ProCare Mobile Response, a Los   
   Angeles-based ambulance company that was named earlier this year as an alleged   
   co-conspirator in a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that an illegal kickback   
   scheme bilked    
   millions of dollars from Medicare and Medi-Cal.   
      
   The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Inspector General at   
   the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that their agents   
   participated in the raid on ProCare's headquarters in execution of a federal   
   search warrant.   
      
   Neither would comment on the details of their investigation, and a spokesman   
   for the U.S. Attorney General's Office in L.A. said the search warrant was   
   under seal.   
      
   A spokesman for the Office of the Inspector General said a "large majority" of   
   cases investigated by his agency involve "waste, fraud and abuse" in Medicare   
   and Medicaid, the two largest government health insurance programs. Medi-Cal   
   is the name of    
   Medicaid in California.   
      
   A lawyer representing ProCare, Patric Hooper, said he did not know whether the   
   investigation was connected to the Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud allegations   
   contained in the whistleblower suit.   
      
   "We're still trying to gather facts on what that's all about," Hooper said.   
   "We don't have any other information other than the fact they were   
   investigated."   
   The lawsuit, filed by former psychiatric nurse Julie Macias, claimed that   
   ProCare got kickbacks for its part in a scheme to take elderly and disabled   
   people on illegal psychiatric holds and transport them to the now-shuttered   
   Los Angeles Metropolitan    
   Medical Center. The hospital was accused of locking them in the psych ward and   
   billing Medicare and MediCal, the two largest government health insurance   
   progams, for their unwarranted care.   
      
   Los Angeles Metropolitan is owned by Tustin-based Pacific Health Corp., which   
   was criminally charged two years ago for recruiting homeless people from Skid   
   Row in Los Angeles and admitting them to its hospitals - including L.A.   
   Metropolitan - with bogus    
   diagnoses and billing the government for their unnecessary treatments. Pacific   
   Health agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle the charges.   
      
   Pacific Health has since closed or sold all four of its hospitals.   
   Contact the writer: 714-796-2440 or bwolfson@ocregister.com   
      
   http://www.ocregister.com/articles/health-639236-medicare-procare.html   
      
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