Published
3 years agoon
Kenneth and Mandy Henderson have given a new dimension to marital togetherness.
Two years ago, a disability claim filed by Mandy Henderson, a lieutenant in the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office, came under suspicion.
“He was described by one of the doctors as presenting like someone who had a stroke,” Tracey said. “He claimed he couldn’t drive and was in constant pain, and he could only do work around the house and water the plants.”
Having both halves of a married law enforcement couple prosecuted for the same crime of cheating on workers’ compensation is obviously unusual. But there’s another odd aspect — it happened in Northern California.
Fraud in California’s $20 billion a year system of supporting disabled workers is rampant, but the vast majority of it occurs in Southern California. Shady lawyers use what are called “cappers” to scour the streets for potential clients, asking them whether they are feeling any pain that might be connected to past employment.
The resulting claims often describe “cumulative trauma” that cannot be tied to any one event. Equally shady doctors sign off on the claims.
Two recent reports by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau frame the prevalence of fraud in Southern California.
One, on doctors who have been charged with fraud, reveals that “Indicted providers in the Los Angeles Basin accounted for about half of … indicted providers but received more than 90 percent of the medical payments made to indicted providers.”
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The second report reveals that “the share of cumulative trauma claims as a percent of all claims is much higher in the Los Angeles Basin than in other parts of the state, and that gap has generally widened over time.”
Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about the state and its politics and is the founding editor of the “California Political Almanac.” Dan has also been a frequent guest on national television news shows, commenting on California issues and policies.
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