Board Accuses Psychologist of Billing Fraud

An Encino psychologist has been accused by state medical regulators of submitting fraudulent bills for thousands of dollars to a fund that pays for counseling and other help for victims of violent crime.

Jenifer Cochagne-Olsen also peddled vitamins and face creams to patients during psychotherapy sessions at her home, and treated one client while simultaneously holding a yard sale, the state Board of Psychology charged.

Cochagne-Olsen, 44, faces revocation of her medical license if found guilty of the charges by an administrative judge. No hearing date has been set. She has held a California psychologist’s license since 1990.

Her lawyer, Ronald A. Litt, said Cochagne-Olsen is a talented therapist who made some bookkeeping errors but has since instituted a better billing system and is repaying overcharges.

“This wasn’t one of those big scam things,” he said. “This lady is just sloppy with organizational skills.”

Cochagne-Olsen was convicted last year in Los Angeles Municipal Court of a misdemeanor count of falsely billing the state victims fund, which reimburses uninsured medical expenses, lost wages and funeral costs for people victimized by violent criminals.

She was placed on probation for three years and ordered to pay more than $56,000 in restitution to the state, according to court documents.

In a separate disciplinary action filed by the psychology board in February, Cochagne-Olsen was accused of submitting phony bills for scores of psychotherapy sessions in 1989, 1990 and 1991. The state pays up to $90 per hour for such treatments.

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In some instances, she “grossly inflated” the number of therapy sessions some clients received, the board said. She also allegedly billed in her name for sessions actually conducted by an unlicensed assistant.

During many therapy sessions, the board charged, Cochagne-Olsen tried to sell her patients vitamins and face creams, or persuade them to sell vitamins for her. As part of one session, she even drove a patient to a vitamin distributor in the San Fernando Valley for a sales orientation class, the board asserted.

In addition, Cochagne-Olsen allegedly wrote personal letters while conducting therapy and allegedly offered to split the proceeds if one patient agreed to help her overcharge the victims fund.

On one occasion, Cochagne-Olsen “conducted a psychotherapy session in her yard while simultaneously conducting a yard sale,” the board’s complaint charged.

Deputy state Atty. Gen. Anne L. Mendoza, who represents the board, said most of Cochagne-Olsen’s clients were low-income Latinos badly traumatized by crimes including rape, sexual molestation and beatings.

“A therapist ripped off a mental health care fund,” said Mendoza. “Those funds have limited dollars. By diverting money from that fund, she was denying other victims of violent crimes mental health care coverage, which is appalling.

“Ms. Cochagne treated the victims-of-crime fund like a personal slush fund. Therapists are not permitted to pimp products and get a tan while billing for therapy,” she said.

The victims fund paid out nearly $70 million in fiscal 1992-93, a spokesman said. Claims have consistently outstripped available money for several years, and the Legislature recently approved an emergency infusion of $44 million for the current fiscal year, he said.

Mendoza said Cochagne-Olsen submitted claims totaling more than $100,000, and a “significant portion” of that was fraudulent. She added that an exact figure was difficult to determine since Cochagne-Olsen kept no meaningful records on patient visits.

Litt, however, said the billings came to about $56,000, and of that only $5,000 to $6,000 was questionable.

Cochagne-Olsen has a heavy client load and sometimes tried to “reconstruct” her patient schedule from memory weeks after she had seen them, resulting in billing errors, Litt said. She has since learned to use a computer and has improved her record-keeping, he said.

Litt said the psychologist did try to sell her patients vitamins and face creams, but only before and after therapy sessions. She no longer keeps such products in her house, he said.

“Since she did everything in her home, the line was blurred. All those things, anyway, were holistic vitamins,” Litt said.

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The attorney said Cochagne-Olsen did counsel one patient while bustling in and out of the house to talk with yard sale customers. But he said that was no more serious an offense than a doctor interrupting a patient examination for a few minutes to take a telephone call.

Regarding the allegation that Cochagne-Olsen billed in her name for therapy performed by an unlicensed assistant, Litt said she had employed a psychologist who was certified in another state. Cochagne-Olsen has since dismissed the assistant until she acquires her California license, he said.

Litt said Cochagne-Olsen has repaid about $11,000 in overcharges and plans to pay more in an amount that remains to be negotiated with state officials.