Doctor Accused of Medi-Cal Fraud Pleads Not Guilty

SANTA ANA —  State authorities have accused a psychiatrist of operating a Medi-Cal mill in the Westminster Vietnamese community, defrauding the state of more than $1 million.

Dr. Duc Qui Nguyen, who was arrested Sunday at his Anaheim Hills home, has pleaded not guilty to charges that include grand theft, submitting false Medi-Cal claims to the state and writing prescriptions for controlled substances without sufficient medical cause.

The charges were filed in Orange County Superior Court by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Don Kennedy, a supervising investigator with the state Department of Justice, said Wednesday that his office took steps to arrest Nguyen, saying that he was about to leave the country, purportedly on a vacation to Vietnam.

Kennedy said his office had received information that led investigators to fear that Nguyen, 51, could have been trying to escape. Nguyen is being held on $500,000 bail.

Authorities had initially sought $1 million in bail, arguing that Nguyen posed a flight risk. Municipal Judge William L. Evans on Wednesday cut the bail in half at the request of Nguyen’s attorney, Milton Grimes.

Grimes denied that his client had any intention to flee. Grimes said he was still reviewing the attorney general’s case and was not yet prepared to comment on the charges.

According to court records, Nguyen was working full time at the state prison system’s California Rehabilitation Center in Norco and moonlighting running a medical clinic on Bolsa Avenue in Westminster. Clinic patients were predominantly Vietnamese.

Nguyen has practiced psychiatry and general medicine at the clinic for about five years, Kennedy said.

An audit of Nguyen’s practice by the California Department of Health Services raised suspicion that something was amiss, according to court records.

“He had billed an inordinate amount of injections for patients and his record-keeping for psychiatric patients was not adequate,” state officials said in an affidavit.