The Washington Attorney General’s Office alleges that Kala Lorraine Johnson’s abuse of the system dates to 2003 and “has cost the Department of Labor and Industries over $1,100 and the innocent medical providers over $17,000,” court papers state.
Johnson, who is in jail in Multnomah County, Ore., on unrelated charges, is charged in Thurston County Superior Court with 21 counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of theft of services.
The alleged fraud came to the attention of an L&I investigator in 2008, L&I spokeswoman Selena Davis said. Davis said L&I typically will flag as suspicious people who repeatedly file occupational injury claims with the state. L&I rejected all of Johnson’s claims, Assistant Attorney General Susan Sackett DanPullo said Thursday.
DanPullo said the medical facilities where Johnson obtained fraudulent prescriptions lost money because some of them paid Johnson’s bills before L&I rejected the claims.
Johnson used a number of aliases, court papers state.
During the investigation, L&I discovered that either the workplaces where Johnson alleged that she had suffered an injury did not exist, or she was never employed at them.
According to court papers:
In March, Johnson filed a claim for an industrial injury at Woodland Urgent Care Center in Lewis County after she claimed that she suffered an injury to her right quadriceps while employed at Java Espresso in Centralia. She filed the claim using the name Kala Anderson.
She wrote on her claim that she twisted her leg when she slipped off of a stool, and she was prescribed Flexeril, Naproxen and Vicodin.
L&I investigator Veronica Caudle was unable to locate a business called Java Espresso in Centralia. She did find a Java Rocks Espresso, but the owner said he hadn’t ever employed anyone named Kala Johnson or Kala Anderson. L&I rejected the claim for “no employer/employee relationship.”
During interviews in March and April, Johnson admitted that she had filed false claims to get pain medications.
It appears that Johnson was able to take advantage of the system because of a law that requires the state to pay for an employee’s initial doctor visit and for any initial prescriptions after an employee suffers a workplace-related injury.
Caudle discovered the other false occupational injury claims filed by Johnson during visits to the following medical facilities: Valley General Hospital, The Everett Clinic, Highline Med- ical Center, Pacific Walk-In Clinic, The Northwest Hospital and Medical Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Group Health Cooperative, Harbor- view Medical Center, Stevens Health Care, Spanaway General Medical Center, The Providence Physician Group, Evergreen Urgent Care, The Work Clinic, Health Force Occupational Medicine, St. Joseph Providence Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, Medcare Clinic and Kent Urgent Care Clinic.
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
