Homeless used for fraud at three California hospitals

An FBI raid at three Southern California hospitals uncovered "a massive scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services," according to a report in The Los Angeles Times. The chief executive at one hospital faces criminal charges, while executives from two other facilities have been named in a civil suit filed by the City of Los Angeles. Additional charges are expected as the investigation continues.

"Many American hospitals are taking it upon themselves to repatriate seriously injured or ill immigrants because they cannot find nursing homes willing to accept them without insurance," reports Deborah Sontag of The New York Times. Hospitals are deporting these patients without any government assistance or oversight. While immigration rights advocates see this as international patient dumping, hospital administrators feels they're being saddled with the problems of dysfunctional immigration and health-care systems.

Through a FOIA request, The Center for Public Integrity obtained the Environmental Protection Agency's internal pesticide incident database, called one of the "Ten Most Wanted Government Documents" by a watchdog group. Their analysis of the more than 90,000 "adverse-reaction" reports filed by manufacturers to the EPA found that the supposedly "safe" pesticide compounds now in thousands of consumer products -- pyrethrins and pyrethroids -- lead the list of poisonings, and that the reports on these compounds have jumped 300 percent in the past decade.

Mary Zahn and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed the rising number of injuries and serious violations at nursing homes in the state of Wisconsin. The reporters reviewed more than 20,000 pages of documents and built their own database of accidents, injuries and deaths spanning the past 3 ½ years. They found that the increase in injuries is occurring during a time of dramatic worker turnover in the nursing home industry and that out-of-state corporations own a disproportionate rate of homes cited over and over for problems. The two-part series includes a searchable database of all homes that have received actual harm or immediate jeopardy citations from regulators since Jan. 1 2005.

An investigation by the Rocky Mountain News examined the federal program to compensate the people who became sick building the nation’s nuclear weapons. The paper found that the agencies running the program, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services, have derailed aid to workers by keeping reports secret from them, constantly changing rules and delaying cases until sick workers died. Workers — and their survivors — from every state in the nation are mired in program so adversarial that top program officials once considered putting some sick workers under government surveillance. At the same time, top officials have collected large bonuses.

Despite being under a court order for 15 years to improve how it collects and processes blood, the American Red Cross remains plagued by problems, reports Stephanie Strom of The New York Times. "The problems, described in more than a dozen publicly available F.D.A. reports — some of which cite hundreds of lapses — include shortcomings in screening donors for possible exposure to diseases; failures to spend enough time swabbing arms before inserting needles; failures to test for syphilis; and failures to discard deficient blood." Since 2003, $21 million in fines have been levied against the the ARC for failure to follow procedures meant to keep the blood supply safe.

Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun investigated the prevalence of use and abuse of prescription narcotics in Nevada. The Sun's analysis showed that "Nevadans consume about twice the national average of several prescription painkillers," including hydrocodone, methadone and oxycodone. Data from the Clark County coroner's office shows that deaths from prescription drug overdoses have now exceeded those linked to illicit drugs.

As part of "War Torn," The New York Times series about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lizette Alvarez reports that alcohol abuse is on the rise as soldiers return home. Experts say abuse is most prevalent in individuals suffering from post traumatic stress. "For active-duty service members, the military faces a shortage of substance-abuse providers on bases across the country, while its health insurance plan, Tricare, makes it difficult for many reservists and their families to get treatment."

Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun investigated the prevalence of use and abuse of prescription narcotics in Nevada. The Sun's analysis showed that "Nevadans consume about twice the national average of several prescription painkillers," including hydrocodone, methadone, morphine and oxycodone. Data from the Clark County coroner's office shows that deaths from prescription drug overdoses have now exceeded those linked to illicit drugs.

In a series by The New York Times, "The Evidence Gap" looks at medical treatments used despite a lack of evidence of effectiveness, while considering steps towards implementing medical care based on proven results and positive benefits.