26 people have been charged in a medical scheme where doctors were bribed to prescribe medications and balms, which had no known medical value, in order to overcharge patients in the process. The 26 doctors and other medical professionals are accused of defrauding almost 13,000 patients in Southern California. The scheme produced almost $40 million and the owners of two medical billing and management companies, Tanya and Christopher King of Beverly Hills, are being accused of heading the scheme. State Insurance Commissioner, Dave Jones, stated:

The Kings and their co-conspirators played with patients’ lives, buying and selling them for profit without regard to patient safety. Patients have the right to expect treatment decisions by healthcare professionals are based on medical need and not unadulterated greed. The magnitude of this alleged crime is an affront to ethical medical professionals

Many of the affected patients were on worker’s compensation and the insurance companies were be overcharged for the unnecessary prescriptions.

It’s certainly sad news to hear about this sort of medical abuse and hopefully none of the affected patients was prescribed something that was harmful.

Read the full article here