A complex work comp fraud has recently been discovered, resulting in the arrests of nine suspects. The investigation carried out by Department of Insurance has determined that the fraud involved 230 wc insurance companies and self-insured employers. G&G Interpreting Services, the company providing Spanish translations, fraudulently billed insurance carriers in the amount of nearly $25 million for translation services provided to claimants of Central and South American origin. The company was helmed by a siblings couple, Francisco Javier Gomez, Jr. and Angela Rehmann.
The company rendered their services from 2012 until this December. They issued bogus bills for services in clinics where the majority of employees spoke Spanish and didn’t need a mediator. G&G Interpreting also delivered their supposed services in clinics where over 10 physicians spoke Spanish fluently.
The area in which G&G provided services was a wide one and encompassed a large portion of Southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Orange and Riverside.
The investigation has unearthed that they extended their fictitious services around 83,000 times. Those working hours top 12 hours a day, which is longer than the clinics were open. A number of services, charged in the excess of $400,000, were performed by a translator who was physically prevented from visiting the clinics due to the fact she was at that time incarcerated in state prison.
Department of Insurance detectives led the investigation and Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office will handle prosecution. The operation was supported by California Highway Patrol and Riverside and San Bernardino district attorneys’ offices.
Insurance Commissioner David Jones of Department of Insurance has emphasized that a lot of people are mistaken when they think such a crime of an insurance fraud is victimless. He stated that when companies decide to take advantage of the system through overbilling or billing shams, everyone picks up the tab in the aftermath.
Department of Insurance founded The Workers’ Compensation Fraud Program in in 1991, when the legislation gave the crime a felony status. That’s also when Fraud Assessment Commission was started to finance the enforcement and prosecution in the cases.
In October 2015, Jones was granted nearly $35 million to support insurance fraud investigations. The collected grants were given to district attorney offices across California counties. The finances will be used toward discovering workers’ comp insurance frauds of various kinds in order to prevent them from draining California’s economy, as Jones said.
If you need a Southern California workers’ compensation attorney, make sure you contact Workers’ Compensation Attorney Group in Los Angeles. You can get a no-cost and no-obligation case review from the most aggressive, ethical and experienced wc lawyers in the County if you call right away.
