Researcher Kevin Sherlock found that:
San Vicente Hospital was investigated for Medi-Cal fraud in 1978 by agents from the State Department of Health Services. It was a 17-bed abortion facility near Beverly Hills. They charged:
- Hospital room billing irregularities (including charging women for rooms they didn’t use)
- Insurance billing for doctor rates for “pregnancy counseling” even though non-doctor “counselors” were doing the “counseling.”
- Microscopic studies charged for, but not done in over half of the postabortion pathologies.
- X-rays charged for, but not given.
- Unnecessary readmission billing. (A staffer released a woman from San Vicente after aborting her baby, then charged her almost $300 for readmission when she complained of postabortion complications).
- Apparent overbilling for drugs and other abortion-related services.
- Overbilling for abortions, operating room time, and anesthesia.
From the author:
“The agents estimated the doctors and owners of San Vicente hospital may have cheated the state’s taxpayers out of at least $500,000 over the previous three years for the billings on pregnancy counseling, x-rays and pathologies alone. They did not even try to estimate the amount of money San Vicente’s doctors and owners may have overbilled for abortions, anesthesia, operating room time, hospital rooms, drugs, and other items…
The agents also questioned San Vicente’s management for failing to provide women with follow-up care, for doing abortions questionably (at an average of one abortion every eight minutes, the agents questioned whether or not the staffers of the largely second trimester abortion facility were observing proper sanitation procedures) and for slipshod medical records keeping.”
Source: Department Of Health Services Report No. SUR 78 – 0067
Kevin Sherlock The Scarlet Survey (Akron, Ohio, Brennyman Books, 1997) 39
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