BEL AIR—Another physician has been found guilty in the “rent-a-patient” health insurance fraud scheme.  From October 2002 to March 2004, William W. Hampton, M.D., performed more than 400 unnecessary surgical procedures at Unity Outpatient Surgery Center in Buena Park, Valley Multi-Specialty Surgery Center in Reseda, Premium Surgery Center in Huntington Beach, and BASI in Beverly Hills.  Hampton, 53, fraudulently billed insurance companies more than $9 million for the needless procedures.

US District Judge Audrey B. Collins sentenced Hampton to 10 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $2,466,352 in restitution to the defrauded health insurance companies.  A second doctor, Mamdouh S. Bahna, 62, pleaded guilty to health care fraud last year and was sentenced to 58 months in federal prison.   

Both Hampton and Bahna participated in “rent-a-patient” schemes at the Bel Air Surgical Institute (BASI).  “Marketers” were hired by the surgery center to recruit patients willing to undergo unnecessary surgical procedures in exchange for cash or discounted cosmetic surgery.  The procedures performed by the doctors at BASI included Esophagogastroduodenscopy (EGD), colonoscopy, sinus surgeries, laparoscopy and thoracic sympathectomy, which is commonly called “sweaty palm surgery.”  Patients were coached to exaggerate or recite false symptoms on medical records so the procedures would appear to be justified.  
 
The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association estimates that fraud costs Americans nearly $100 billion a year.  The “rent-a-patient” scheme has become a major concern for insurance-fraud investigators.  At a National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association convention FBI Agent Dan Martino said, "This has become one of the largest initiatives that we've undertaken in several years." Agents have focused on numerous Southern California clinics with most patients being recruited from California, Texas, Utah, Minnesota and Arizona.  “This is a conspiracy between surgery centers, doctors, office personnel, billing services, patient recruiters and patients," Martino said.  "Nobody has died yet, but I give it just a matter of time until it happens.”