Doctor Given 16 Months for Medi-Cal Fraud

A Vietnamese doctor who immigrated to the United States in 1979 was sentenced Friday to 16 months in state prison for defrauding the state’s Medi-Cal program of at least $25,000.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Phillip Cox also ordered Hung Vu Do, 39, of Garden Grove to make restitution for the money to the state, although no amount has yet been specified.

Do’s brother, Hoang Vu Do, who acted as a receptionist for his brother’s practice, pleaded guilty to filing a false claim with Medi-Cal and was ordered jailed for six months, plus three years’ probation.

Do and his brother were among more than 40 Indochinese refugees across the state arrested last February after an undercover investigation of Medi-Cal fraud. Subsequent arrests as a result of the ongoing probe have increased the number of doctors, pharmacists, clerks and receptionists charged to 57, of which 33 are in Orange County.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Lillian Lim Quon, who had asked that Hung Vu Do be given a three-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to a single charge of grand theft, said that although “I think a state prison sentence was appropriate for Dr. Do, the court simply disagreed with us as to the length of time.”

Quon said an audit of patients’ records after the doctor’s arrest projected overpayments of about $54,000 from Feb. 1 through Aug. 31, 1983. But she said investigators also found medical test result sheets already filled out, except for names, leading them to believe that bills may have been submitted for treatment of fictitious patients.

Hung Vu Do graduated from medical school in Vietnam in 1972 and served until 1975 as a medical officer in the army of South Vietnam, according to court records. He came to the United States in July, 1979, and obtained a license to practice medicine in California in May, 1982.

So far, Cox has accepted guilty pleas from eight people in the fraud probe, and two others who originally pleaded guilty are now seeking to withdraw their admissions of wrongdoing and plead innocent, Deputy Atty. Gen. Ronald Prager said.