A Garden Grove physician, who pleaded guilty twice last year to being part of an insurance fraud scheme that authorities say generated $98 million in bills for unnecessary medical treatments, is now the subject of a Medical Board of California accusation.
Dr. Quynam P. Nguyen, who had previously resided in Lake Forest and been in general practice in Long Beach, had an amended accusation filed against his license to practice medicine in California on Jan. 26, according to state records.
He was convicted on June 23 in an insurance fraud case filed in Orange County Superior Court. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to 270 days in custody and ordered to spend five years on probation and pay $335,500 in restitution.
Nguyen also pleaded guilty on Jan. 23, 2017, to insurance fraud in Riverside County, where the judge gave him the same jail and probation time, which he is serving concurrently with the Orange County punishment.
He admitted to submitting fraudulent bills to insurance carriers in the legal and medical scheme authorities say was masterminded by Peyman Heidary, a chiropractor known as the “Godfather.”
Heidary, who allegedly maximized profits by recruiting injured workers and giving them a one-size-fits-all battery of medical treatments, faces 59 counts of insurance fraud in Riverside County for his alleged medical mill. He previously pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors claim $98 million in bills for unnecessary treatments were generated at Anaheim Health Clinic, Santa Ana Health Clinic, Riverside Health Clinic, Corona Health Clinic, Montebello Health Clinic and Bellflower Health Clinic.
Nguyen’s guilty pleas in the cases necessitate the medical board discipline, according to the accusation, which adds that violating the Medical Practice Act constitutes a second cause of discipline.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.