Originally published July 27 2005
Audit suggests L.A. doctors charged for unaccounted work
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
An audit of the Martin Luther King Jr./ Drew Medical Center in the Los Angeles inner city shows six of the hospital's emergency department doctors took in nearly $75,000 from questionable billing, and 39 percent of the hours billed by the doctors over a two-month period could not be accounted for.
Of the 2,200 hours billed in April and May by the six doctors, who worked as independent contractors, 39 percent could not be explained.
The report came as Martin Luther King Jr./ Drew Medical Center is struggling to overcome severe problems including patient deaths blamed on shoddy nursing care.
The hospital has been repeatedly cited by regulators and has lost its accreditation in several medical specialties.
The audit also found that 12 doctors signed deals to become higher-paid contractors while they were still on the county payroll or within a year after leaving, a violation of county rules.
One of those doctors, a neurologist, was paid as both a contractor and an employee for at least 20 hours of work.
County supervisors ordered the latest audit in April after the Los Angeles Times reported that King/Drew had paid more than $1.3 million from March 2004 to March 2005 to a radiologist who claimed he worked 24-hour days for weeks at a time.
More than one-quarter of the best paid county employees work or have worked at the troubled hospital, with annual salaries from nearly $180,000 to more than $239,000 for 25 doctors and one nurse manager, according to a report earlier this week.
The county is paying a turnaround firm, Navigant Consulting Inc., $15 million to run the hospital for a year, but many lapses in medical care and management have surfaced under the company's watch.
Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the health department, said he would recommend ways to strengthen contracting rules and would seek to recoup any money it believed it was owed by doctors.
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