Medi-Cal Fraud Is Charged : Crime: Two firms--one operates in the Valley--are among 20 under investigation for fraudulently billing Medi-Cal.

Cracking down on a scam that may cost California’s medical program for the poor up to $80 million this year, state Justice Department attorneys on Thursday charged the owner of a health-care company doing business in the San Fernando Valley with filing fraudulent Medi-Cal bills for incontinence supplies for the elderly and disabled.

The Los Angeles firm, and another in Oakland against which charges were filed, are among 20 under investigation for Medi-Cal fraud. Under the scheme, hustlers go door-to-door persuading residents of nursing homes and government-subsidized housing complexes--including a number in the San Fernando Valley--to hand over Medi-Cal stickers they use for health-care services and supplies, said Steven V. Adler, the state’s chief prosecutor of Medi-Cal fraud.

The stickers are sold, for up to $300 apiece, to unscrupulous firms that specialize in incontinence products, Adler said. The companies use the stickers to bill Medi-Cal, charging for items never delivered or sharply inflating the amounts delivered, he said.

He said the scam has surfaced in counties throughout the state, and that Medi-Cal may lose up to two-thirds of its $120-million budget for incontinence supplies this fiscal year to fraudulent billings.

Adler said the owner of a Los Angeles incontinence-products firm, Dr. Librada V. Del Mundo, was charged with nine felony counts of filing false claims and grand theft. Del Mundo filed fraudulent bills totaling $32,000, he said.

Medi-Cal inspector Dennis Cowan said Del Mundo, a dentist, obtained stickers in exchange for performing dental exams and cleaning teeth for residents of board and care homes in Studio City, Lake View Terrace and elsewhere in Los Angeles County. She used the stickers to bill Medi-Cal for incontinence supplies that were rarely delivered, he said.

Also charged was Ronald J. Norman, owner of American Home Health Care Products, an Oakland-based firm that operated throughout California, Adler said. He said Norman’s firm was suspected of filing $9.1 million worth of fraudulent claims in an 18-month period.

Del Mundo and Norman couldn’t be reached for comment.