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Update: Scamming a billion dollars out of workers’ comp

Allison McCartney
/
Reveal
Thousands of California workers have been swept into medical-billing mills, prescribed unregulated medications and advised to undergo sometimes unneeded or high-risk surgery by doctors who were raking in bribes on the side.

This week, we’re revisiting California’s workers’ compensation program that covers 15 million workers across the state. If you get hurt on the job – fall off a ladder, for instance – it’s the system you turn to. Most employers are required to carry workers' comp insurance, which helps cover medical bills and lost wages for injured employees.

But reporter Christina Jewett discovered serious fraud in the system after reviewing thousands of documents. They showed that in the past decade, more than 80 people have been accused of cheating California’s workers' comp medical system out of $1 billion.

Find out what’s happened since we first aired that episode. And at the end of this week’s episode, we tell you about a big development in a different story – one that we’re actively reporting on.

By Julia B. Chan, Reveal

Reveal is a weekly radio program produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. For more, check out Reveal's website and subscribe to their podcast.