Concern About Safety, Fraud Got Her Fired, Nurse Charges

The former nursing director for the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital claims she was fired for reporting unsafe medical practices and suggesting that the home was under investigation for Medicare fraud.

In a $7.5-million lawsuit, Audrey R. O’Donnell alleges she was fired Sept. 26, 1986, nine days after she questioned whether the hospital’s care of certain patients in the ward for the acutely ill amounted to Medicare fraud.

O’Donnell’s attorney, Mary E. Kelly, said the facility was previously cited by health officials for housing patients in the hospital when their condition didn’t warrant acute care.

“That’s why they are being investigated,” she said. “Medicare is not going to reimburse for acute services when the patient doesn’t belong there.”

Allegations Denied

John Pavlik, executive director of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which operates the Woodland Hills facility, denied the charges in O’Donnell’s suit, which was filed Tuesday in Van Nuys Superior Court.

Pavlik acknowledged, however, that the facility’s Medicare billing practices and the allegations of fraud are under investigation by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Blue Cross of California.

“We have not done anything wrong,” said Pavlik, who declined to say why O’Donnell had been dismissed. “We have been cooperating . . . and we are confident of a favorable outcome.”

Pavlik said investigators have not told him specifically what they are looking for, but instead are looking at everything--complex documents and thousands of financial transactions.

Probe Confirmed

Judith Holtz, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services, confirmed that an investigation is in progress but declined to elaborate on its scope. A spokeswoman for Blue Cross would neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

The Motion Picture and Television Fund was established in 1921 as a private charity to help retired actors and others in the entertainment business. The hospital has 176 beds; another 120 beds are in the residential part.

O’Donnell’s suit names the fund, Pavlik, hospital administrator Robert Tonry and four other officials of the facility.

O’Donnell, now the nursing director at San Fernando Community Hospital, alleges that, from the time she was hired by the Woodland Hills hospital on Jan. 3, 1985, she tried hard to identify unsafe medical practices and change those that violated law.

Alcoholic Drinks Alleged

Among the practices she said she reported to her superiors were nurses aides who were improperly administering medication, outdated drugs kept on hand, physical and verbal abuse of patients by aides, drinking of alcoholic beverages by on-duty employees at hospital social gatherings and wine provided to patients at dinner without a doctor’s authorization.

According to the suit, Medicare and Blue Cross auditors were examining the hospital’s books in August, 1986, the month before she was fired. O’Donnell talked with a hospital official about what she should say to auditors concerning the practice of placing non-acute patients in the acute wings because other beds are unavailable, the lawsuit states.

O’Donnell claims that she was told the audit could mean “millions of dollars that the fund would have to pay because Medicare would not cover the service.”

“What are you talking about, Medicare fraud?” she is quoted in the lawsuit as asking.