3 Doctors Face U.S. Inquiry Over Loans : Simi Valley: The physicians may be charged with bribery for allegedly taking a hospital’s money in exchange for patient referrals.

Federal authorities said Friday that they may pursue criminal charges against three doctors who are suspected of taking non-repayable loans from Simi Valley Adventist Hospital in the mid-1980s in exchange for referring patients to the medical facility.

Elliott Kramer, regional inspector with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said investigators are reviewing a Ventura County grand jury report on the matter to determine if there is sufficient evidence to recommend that the U.S. attorney’s office file charges against the physicians.

“I would hope within the next 90 days we would know” whether charges would be filed, Kramer said.

If convicted of bribery charges, the physicians could face up to five years in federal prison or a $25,000 fine for each bribery count levied against them, Kramer said.

On Thursday, the county grand jury reported that the hospital had violated state law in the mid-1980s by giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to the doctors in exchange for patient referrals. County prosecutors concluded that no charges could be filed under state law because too much time has passed since the alleged crimes.

However, Kramer said federal authorities still have time, possibly as much as a year, to press charges under federal laws.

An attorney representing physicians George Dichter and Geoffrey Graham, two of those named in the grand jury report, said Friday that the findings “were completely erroneous and unfounded.”

According to the grand jury report, the two doctors would not be required to repay loans they received from the hospital if, “among other things, they made their best efforts to admit their patients to Simi Valley Adventist for five years.”

Christopher Caldwell said his clients had received substantial loans from the hospital but not as part of an agreement to bring patients to the hospital.

“Medical records show that my clients referred patients to other hospitals,” Caldwell said.

He said the doctors were in the process of paying back a $300,000 loan they received from the hospital in late 1986 to set up a practice in Simi Valley.

“None of the money received went into their pockets,” Caldwell said. “Payments are still being made . . . none of the loans have been forgiven.”

However, he said, the doctors are involved in a dispute with the hospital over the terms of a separate 1987 loan agreement. He declined to comment on specifics of the separate loan.

Dr. Vahe Azizian, a third physician named in the grand jury report, is also being investigated by federal authorities, Kramer said.

In an interview Friday, Azizian said he testified before the grand jury that he had received a $25,000 loan from the hospital in 1985 with the agreement that part of the loan would be forgiven if he would bring the majority of his patients to the hospital.

“It was made with that agreement on the hospital’s behalf, but I didn’t change my admitting pattern,” Azizian said. He added that he still referred patients to hospitals in Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and Northridge.

Azizian said he is also in the process of repaying all of the $25,000 loan he received from the hospital. He said he accepted the loan just after graduating from Boston University with his medical degree and did not know at the time that such practices were illegal.

“I didn’t think it was wrong,” Azizian said. “I was a naive student right out of medical school. I didn’t know if it was legal or not. It’s not fair. I’m an honest physician.”

Azizian said authorities should take into consideration that, unlike Dichter and Graham, he chose to testify and reveal what he said was standard hospital policy.

Both Deputy Dist. Atty. John Geb, who presented the case to the grand jury, and Kramer said it does not matter if the physicians are paying back the loans. The legal problem, they said, is if the initial agreement was to refer their patients to the hospital in exchange for the money.

“That’s the problem,” Geb said. “The initial agreement was to forgive the loans.”

Darwin Remboldt, the hospital’s administrator in the mid-1980s, testified that the practice of giving doctors financial benefits partly for referring patients had been hospital policy, the grand jury report said.

Remboldt, who answered questions only after being granted immunity from prosecution, said such practices were necessary to help the hospital keep up with growth in Simi Valley, the report said.

“As far as we could tell, he believed this was not a violation of kickback laws,” Geb said. “He didn’t think he was violating the law.”

Remboldt, who left the hospital in 1989 for an administrative position at Palmdale Medical Center, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Geb said that when the grand jury investigation began in January the statute of limitations for pressing charges under state law against the hospital and the doctors had already passed, expiring in July, 1989.

But the grand jury continued the investigation, originally prompted by complaints from unidentified sources at the hospital, to determine if illegal practices were continuing to occur.

“Our investigation revealed that nothing like that has been going on in the past three years” at the hospital, Geb said.

All three doctors named in the grand jury report still practice at Simi Valley Adventist, a hospital administrator said.