Did any of Dr Victor Contreras's patients fraudulently die by assisted suicide?
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Two years following his arrest, Dr. Victor Contreras, 68, recently pled guilty to one count of health care fraud. Contreras served as a physician for two Pasadena-based providers, Saint Mariam Hospice Inc. and Arcadia Hospice Provider Inc.This issue is significant for several reasons.
Contreras defrauded Medicare of nearly $4 million in false and fraudulent hospice claims from July 2016 to February 2019, according to the plea agreement. U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. has scheduled a sentencing hearing for October 25, with Contreras facing a maximum of 10 years in federal prison.
“Contreras falsely stated on claims forms that patients had terminal illnesses to make them eligible for hospice services covered by Medicare, typically adopting diagnoses provided to him by hospice employees whether or not they were true,” the U.S. Department of Justice Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California indicated in a statement. “Contreras did so even though he was not the patients’ primary care physician and had not spoken to those primary care physicians about the patients’ conditions.”
The authorities are concerned with approximately $30 million in Medicare fraud.
We are concerned with the ease of falsely declaring patients terminal considering that the same criteria for qualifying for hospice care also qualifies a patient for assisted suicide in California. Did any of Contreras's patients fraudulently die by assisted suicide?
Vossel reported for The Hospice News that:
Arcadia Hospice Provider submitted false Medicare claims to the tune of $23 million. Meanwhile, St. Mariam Hospice submitted nearly $13.5 million in false claims. Contreras was allegedly involved in roughly $5.1 million of these, according to the Justice Department.
Additional charges were issued to medical industry marketer Callie Jean Black, 65, who allegedly recruited patients for the hospice companies in exchange for illegal kickbacks, the Justice Department reported. Black was also arrested in 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. A sentencing trial is scheduled for October 15.
The charges also included the owner of the two hospice companies, Juanita Antenor, 61, who remains at large. Authorities have not been able to locate Antenor throughout the two-year investigation. The Justice Department believed Antenor could have relocated to the Philippines as of 2022, though nothing has been publicly confirmed.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition demands an audit of the medical records for people who have been approved for assisted suicide in California.
Further to that, we recognize that if such levels of Medicare fraud and falsely diagnosing people as terminal is possible in California, then it must also be possible in all American jurisdictions and even Canada.
Laws that permit the killing of people by assisted suicide can be abused.
2 comments:
Medicare scammers steal 50 million a year. This man is hunting them.
The above is a WIRED magazine article on how the man featured is using big data to hunt down fraudsters. It's from 2016, but it's still up there. Fun fact: if you catch fraudsters and they get jail time, you get a reward.
Yes, So Sadly I Am Not Surprised Of The HealthCare Fraud Going On Everywhere, Because After All: Physicians, Nurses, Specialists, "Other Staff" And Groups Who Are Bullying Everyone Everywhere With Manipulative Lies To Support Homicide And To Support Them Doing Such Is Gaining Them A lot Of Money; They Are Taking In All Kinds Of BIG MONEY From Pharmaceutical Companies Making These Garbage Assisted Suicide Drugs And Euthanasia Drugs, They Are Taking Money From Governments And Other Losers Who Have Nothing Better To Do With Their Money But Selfishly Keep Taking More Of It And Unfortunately Will Risk The Offense Of Homicide And Fraud Just For The Sake Of It Even If It Means Providing A "False Medical Diagnosis" To Patients And Even If It Means Abusing The Patient Sadly, These Psychopaths And Sociopaths Are So Selfish They Will Do Anything Even If It Means Abusing Vulnerable People For Their Gain And Taking Advantage Of Them And Abusing The Law And System And Then Mysteriously Disappearing Like The Owner Of The Hospice In California Who Mysteriously Went Missing And May Have Relocated To The Philippines;
It Is So Sickening That This Occurs And Continues To Occur All Over US, And Canada And Elsewhere In The World As Does Occur In Many Other Countries Also; It Is Sickening To Have To Accept The Harsh Reality That These Are People In Charge Of Vulnerable People And Their Families And Friends, But Yet Commit Medical Fraud, Commit Fake Diagnosis, Abuse Laws, And Go And Kill With The Irreversible Death Outcome; It Is A Sick Society Filled With Sick People, And Yet This Goes On Every Day Everywhere Without A Permanent Stop To All Of It, But Worse-Off You Keep Having These Abusing/Bulling Losers Keep Pushing Legislation And They Keep Extending The Limits!!! When Is Everyone Everywhere Going To Say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND IT ALL HAS TO STOP NOW!!!
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