DA Puts a Stop to Doctors Milling Around the County By Robert Warne - August 5, 2003 The Los Angeles County fraud squad recently dismantled a fraud mill responsible for skimming more than $2 million off of claims since 1999. The workers’ compensation fraud takedown is considered the county’s largest ever.
Four key players were formally charged this week for their part in billing carriers for medical visits that never occurred.
For his role, Dr. Parviz Berjis’ medical license was suspended and he’s been camped out in a cell since Aug. 4, pending his ability to post $500,000 bail.
Chiropractor Sam Salehi, therapist Bijan Rahmani and a welder named Leroy Jaramillo round out the roster of participants in the operation.
Jaramillo filed a bogus workers' compensation claim back in the 1980s for a welding injury he allegedly sustained while working at County-USC. In an effort to wring his claim out for all it was worth, he would submit false mileage reports for doctor visits he never attended.
And on the other side of the counter at the clinic, the doctors would bill for services never performed during the visits that Jaramillo never appeared for.
But the cogs in the mill started to slip when the doctors didn’t get the memo not to submit a bill for services performed on the same day Jaramillo was arrested on drug related charges in Arizona.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Deputy District Attorney Tom Higgins said that even though the fraudulent operation had probably been functioning before 1999, the charges against these men were confined by a four-year statute of limitations.
|