State Probes Alleged Theft by County-Paid Doctors : Inquiry: Double-billing scheme for services at High Desert Hospital in Lancaster is suspected.

State authorities are investigating several doctors employed by Los Angeles County for theft, alleging that they defrauded the county and the state out of a “considerable” amount of Medi-Cal funds by personally pocketing money for services performed at the county’s High Desert Hospital in the Antelope Valley, officials said Thursday.

The doctors, who are paid by the county to provide obstetrical and gynecological treatment at the Lancaster facility, have been under investigation for several months, according to confidential documents obtained by The Times.

They are suspected of illegally billing the state for Medi-Cal reimbursements for work done at the county hospital, even though the county was billing for the same services.

Hospital officials became suspicious when a large number of claims for Medi-Cal reimbursement were being denied by the state because they were duplicates, sources said.

The investigation comes as numerous others are under way involving allegations of illegal and improper activity by county-paid doctors at the county’s six hospitals, including High Desert. Those inquiries, being conducted by the Department of Health Services, focus primarily on doctors suspected of excessive moonlighting at the expense of their public duties, and physicians suspected of skimming insured patients away from county hospitals and into their private practices, depriving the county of Medi-Cal revenue.

At least one of the patient-skimming investigations focuses on obstetrics and gynecology doctors, who are suspected of sending insured patients at county facilities to their private practices so the doctors can personally benefit from the insurance reimbursements.

The investigation revealed Thursday is similar to that probe, but differs in that the doctors at High Desert are suspected of profiting from infant delivery and other services provided at the county hospital and while the doctors were on the county payroll.

Authorities were ready to conduct raids at several doctors’ private offices and at High Desert and a private hospital Thursday, but they were called off at the last minute so changes could be made in the language of the search warrants, authorities said.

Nevertheless, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, in a news release, erroneously said the raids had occurred and that “those implicated should be swiftly brought to justice and required to make restitution.”

Sources said the raids will be conducted when the new search warrants are ready, but they expressed concern that the element of surprise may have been lost with Antonovich’s premature announcement. A spokesman for Antonovich said the supervisor’s staff had received bad information.

Because the search warrants were not executed, county health officials had no comment, nor did Bill Fujioka, administrator of High Desert Hospital. Authorities with the state attorney general’s office, which is conducting the investigation, also had no comment.

County memos indicate that the probe has been aggressive and ongoing for some time. In a Sept. 29 memo, then-health director Robert C. Gates told the Board of Supervisors that search warrants were expected before Oct. 1 at “county and non-county sites” to obtain information on the alleged fraudulent double-billing. “Based on what is found during the various searches, arrest warrants for county OB medical staff may be issued,” Gates said.