The Weekly Newspaper of Manhattan Beach Herald Publications - El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 Vol. 11, No. February 2, 2017 Inside This Issue Certified and Licensed Professionals...................8 Classifieds............................4 Entertainment......................6 Finance..................................2 Food.......................................5 Looking Up...........................8 Pets........................................7 Real Estate.................. 9 - 11 Seniors..................................4 Sports....................................3 Weekend Forecast Rare Storms Enjoyed in Manhattan Beach Work Comp Crackdown Targets Business Fraud See Fraud, page 4 Friday, February 3 Showers 60˚/53˚ Saturday, February 4 Partly Cloudy 62˚/52˚ Sunday, February 5 Partly Sunny 61˚/54˚ A man on the Manhattan Beach pier looks out over the ocean on a stormy day. A rare, but usually appreciated, series of heavy rain storms arrived last month, with possibly more to come this month. Photo by Peter Thornton U.S. Skies Remain a Call-Free Zone - For Now By Rob McCarthy As if airline travel wasn’t stressful enough for cramped passengers, there’s talk about allowing phone service on domestic flights. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is floating a trial balloon--which is what government agencies do to gauge public reaction to policy changes--about lifting the nation’s restriction on phone service on U.S. commercial flights. The DOT envisions that Wi-Fi phone service could be safe enough to install on commercial U.S. jets, but also admits there could be passenger backlash if the perceived ban on air-talk is lifted. Cell phone service is only banned on commercial flights because of concerns that the signals will interfere with navigation and communications in the cockpit. The Transportation Department and the Federal Communications Commission are rethinking call-free skies, in effect since 1991. The ban does not cover Wi-Fi and other technology for making voice calls. When transportation officials raised the possibility in 2014 of lifting the no-call rule, they heard back from 1,700 passengers, consumer advocates, and the airline unions. In response to a question of whether domestic flights should offer in-flight phone service, 96 percent of the emails and letters the department received said it was a horrible idea. Individuals cited their loss of privacy, while aviation safety groups said the additional noise would make flight crews’ jobs more difficult. One commenter said terrorists might find a way to exploit the technology. People used “strong language” to describe their dread about being confined on a domestic flight with nowhere to escape a phone conversation in the next seat or row, the department said. International carriers do allow passengers to make and receive voice calls, but not within 250 miles of the U.S. It’s widely understood that Americans See U.S. Skies, page 2 By Rob McCarthy Years of cost-cutting reforms have brought California business owners relief from high workers’ compensation bills, and now state officials are going after the cheaters for even more savings. Lately, anti-fraud efforts have been directed at companies that inflate bills for medical care, equipment and assistive services to injured workers. The state office that oversees the workers’ comp system on January 1 froze $1 billion in suspicious bills from companies that are under investigation or been charged with fraud. A new fraudfighting law gave officials the authority to red flag almost 200,000 bills from being paid. There are 75 medical providers facing criminal fraud charges, according to the Department of Industrial Relations in Oakland, which requested and received greater enforcement powers from lawmakers. The department also intends to suspend doctors, clinics and healthcare providers who have been convicted of fraud using its new authority as the state combats the insurance fraud. The state will ramp up fraud detection this year and create a special unit to share and track data from the physicians, hospitals, medical billers and other businesses that serve injured workers. The unit specifically will watch for overbilling for services performed or billing for treatment that wasn’t given or pre-approved. This type of fraud in the California workers’ comp system drew the notice of federal investigators, who arrested and prosecuted in 2014 the operator of a Long Beach hospital for illegal kickbacks to doctors. The physicians allegedly referred patients to the former Pacific Hospital for spinal implants. The facility’s operator, Michael Drobot, also admitted that bribed former State Senator Ron Calderon for legislative support for the billing scheme. Calderon, who represented Montebello, was convicted of corruption and is serving a four-year prison sentence. The fraud isn’t limited to doctors and hospitals that inflate their charges, according to the new report. Efforts to catch cheaters will turn this year on the employers who don’t pay their fair share to cover their employees in case of injury or illness as a result of their employment. “While some associate the word ‘fraud’ with false or exaggerated claims of injury, it also embraces service provider and premium fraud, which can be far more costly to the system and to the California employers who pay for that system,” acknowledges a January 18 report on the scope of the problem. Companies lie about the number of people they employ and also underreport their payroll so their insurance costs stay low, says the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office that works with state insurance fraud investigators on workers’ comp cases. The cheating goes beyond weekly payroll, too. The underreporting of payroll is estimated as high as $68 billion per year, though that figure comes from a 2009 report to workers’ comp officials. The low estimate for payroll
MBSun_020217_lorez
To see the actual publication please follow the link above