Irregular Admissions Practice at California Hospital Cited Four Years Ago

State and county inspectors found irregular admissions practices four year ago at one of the three California hospitals accused of bilking the state’s Medicaid program out of millions, the Los Angeles Times reported.

It appears, however, that inspectors from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and the Department of Health Services may not have followed up on its orders to City of Angels Hospital to correct some problems, including accepting patients with "questionable medical criteria for admission," the newspaper reported. Two years passed before suspected patient dumping sparked an investigation.

Now the hospital, along with The Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center and Tustin Hospital Medical Center, and their top executives, are facing civil charges they defrauded the state and federal government by recruiting homeless people to fill unused beds at the hospitals to boost their finances (“Three California Hospitals Used Homeless to Bilk Medicaid Program: Suit,” Aug. 11).

According the report, the departments inspected the hospital in February and March of 2004 and uncovered an array of irregular practices, including admitting patients directly to a medical-surgical unit on the fifth floor, rather than through its emergency room or urgent care department.

A report by the mental health department said that "patients are admitted to the medical unit with flimsy medical diagnosis, and often have psychiatric needs that are not addressed."  The report also called the hospital’s discharge policy “shoddy and incomplete," the LA Times reported.

Unfortunately, new complaints against the City of Angels hospital that prompted other inspections didn’t include follow-up on the admissions irregularities.  A state official told the LA Times that when the health department does a hospital review in response to a complaint, investigators look only at the complaint that prompted the investigation.

Authorities say the scheme to use homeless and mentally ill people to fill beds at the hospitals cost taxpayers millions as thousands of homeless people were churned through the hospitals for unjustified medical procedures.

The hospitals and executives involved have denied the allegations.