Most kids go through a phase where they like to play doctor. They listen to each other’s heartbeat, tap knees, wrap pretend wounds with bandages, and prescribe non-existent medicine.  Some medical suppliers in L.A. County have continued that game into adulthood and are playing a wasteful game of doctor.  They’ll take your medical supply orders and the Medicare money, but just like the game, the patient won’t receive any actual service. 

According to an L.A. Times article (March 3^rd), a great number of L.A. medical suppliers gave the opposite of what the doctor ordered: “After a series of surprise inspections in Los Angeles County, Medicare fraud investigators found persistent corruption among equipment suppliers who set up phony offices that billed the government $21 million over one year….” 

The all too serious $21 million in losses was diagnosed after “[i]nvestigators checked 905 suppliers.”  A surprisingly great number of the supply offices had been posers: “[O]ffices of about 115 suppliers – 1 in 8 – were closed, in vacant buildings or listed under the addresses of other businesses, such as a doctor’s office and an art gallery, according to the report.”  

Sadly, “[v]ictims include[d] non-English-speaking Asian and Latino Medicare recipients who were duped by fake suppliers and then billed for items they not need or receive.” They relied on receiving supplies from empty offices that “should have been filled with wheelchairs, crutches, bedpans and other medical equipment.” They probably would have been better off ordering from little kids. 

This recent finding is not a breakthrough in L.A. area Medicare fraud. “Medicare records show that in California, 123 suppliers had their billing privileges revoked for the year preceding April 2007. Of those, 108 were in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties…; 83 were in Los Angeles County alone.”

Unfortunately, the prognosis can only get worse – “Medicare records show that L.A. County is home to nearly 5,000 suppliers.” This $21 million is seemingly a small bruise compared to the gaping wound of L.A.’s waste of Medicare dollars: “Investigators have uncovered $300 million potentially fraudulent billing in the last two years.” Now that’s a big pill to swallow.

How can taxpayers be expected to pay even more in taxes (of any kind) when government money is so available to be blatantly laundered by scam artists? We will only outsmart this waste by pulling the plug on mindless spending. 

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