There were calls. And texts. And emails — all nudging Brian Helleland to use his role on the board of directors at CalOptima Health to ensure the agency kept backing a planned healthcare center in Westminster.

The messages were coming at all hours — the first one after 11 p.m. — from Hang Nguyen, a top regulator in Orange County for the state Department of Public Health, using her work email. Nguyen is in charge of investigating complaints against healthcare facilities, including the one Helleland works for.

An email obtained by LAist.

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CalOptima via public records request.

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LAist obtained email, text and other correspondence between Nguyen and CalOptima officials, who run Orange County’s Medi-Cal system, through a public records request.

In one email that she asked Helleland to pass on to his fellow board members, Nguyen wrote that she would personally benefit from the project for elderly Vietnamese-speaking adults in surrounding Little Saigon, saying her parent lived in the area and would be the health center’s “first patient.”

In another exchange about CalOptima’s pending vote on whether to revoke its endorsement of the healthcare center, Nguyen texted that she wouldn’t send any investigators to Helleland’s hospital while he and the rest of the CalOptima board were meeting to decide the Little Saigon health center’s fate. She ended that text with “lol.”

Text messages between Hang Nguyen and Brian Helleland, a top executive at a Providence hospital, obtained by LAist.

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CalOptima via public records request

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The health center, designed to follow a federal model known as Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly was planned by a company called 360 PACE. At the time Nguyen was pushing Helleland to move the project forward, the health center’s fate was suddenly uncertain because CalOptima officials had recently become aware of a whistleblower lawsuit. That lawsuit was filed against 360 Health Plan, an affiliate of 360 PACE, accusing the firm of defrauding the government and insurance companies out of millions of dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to serving on the CalOptima board, Helleland is chief regional executive of the Providence hospital system and chief executive of Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Orange. He read the messages — coming from someone with the power to order hospital inspections and issue penalties — as a subtle threat and alerted CalOptima officials, according to emails obtained by LAist through records requests and interviews with CalOptima officials.

Those officials referred the exchange to federal law enforcement and Nguyen’s employer, the California Department of Public Health.

In a statement to LAist, CalOptima Director Norma Garcia-Guillen, who heads the board’s legal ad hoc committee, wrote: “We take any potentially implied or explicit threat attempting to influence board members and their policy decisions extremely seriously, which is why we immediately referred the matter to our own counsel, and then ultimately the appropriate law enforcement agencies.” Helleland declined an interview request from LAist.

LAist sought comment from Nguyen in person at her home in Westminster and her office, as well as via her work email and phone number. She did not respond.

Ultimately, Nguyen’s efforts to sway the CalOptima board on behalf of the Little Saigon health center failed. Its members voted unanimously in February to revoke their letter of support for 360 PACE.

In a text to Helleland after the vote — also disclosed to LAist under the Public Records Act — Hang Nguyen downplayed fraud allegations against the company, which derailed the deal.

She emailed CalOptima board member Helleland to call the whistleblower a “disgruntled employee.” Hang Nguyen wrote: “Again, allegations are allegations until there are facts to prove it."

In an emailed statement to LAist, Mark Smith, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, where Nguyen works, said it could not comment on personnel matters. The statement said the department is reviewing the allegations against Nguyen “and will take all necessary and appropriate actions.”

Smith wrote that the Department of Public Health, where Nguyen has worked since 2007, and its staff “do not have any authority” over the type of facility Nguyen urged Helleland to support. He also said Nguyen’s job duties do not include advocating for this type of facility, which is overseen by federal health officials and a different state agency, the California Department of Health Care Services.

The long shadow of Andrew Do

CalOptima officials were concerned by what appeared to be a pressure campaign from a state regulator with seemingly no official stake in their decision-making. But they said they were even more disturbed by her apparent connections to other key players in high-stakes county politics.

CalOptima is now investigating Hang Nguyen’s connections to a pair of prominent local businessmen, Gary and Larry Nguyen, whose companies received millions in taxpayer dollars during Andrew Do’s leadership at CalOptima and on the Board of Supervisors.

Until recently, Do was among the most powerful politicians in Orange County. He abruptly resigned from CalOptima’s board in February 2023 after the state announced plans to audit hiring practices and large pay hikes during the time Do was chair of CalOptima’s board.

Then, in October 2024, nearly a year after LAist started reporting on potential corruption in Orange County, Do pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge stemming from his actions while on the Board of Supervisors. Prosecutors called his actions a brazen plundering of public money. He is awaiting sentencing, scheduled for June 9, and faces up to five years in prison.

“ This investigation is not over,” then-U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said at the announcement of Do’s plea deal last year. “We are taking the first step on the path to justice and accountability and we will follow every lead.”

Curious connections set off CalOptima’s alarm bells, officials said

The Nguyen brothers, their family members and business partners are major players in Orange County’s healthcare scene, particularly elder care. They own numerous businesses registered in California, Nevada, Washington and Delaware. The brothers also have extensive real estate holdings in Orange County.

Gary Nguyen's company 360 Health Plan ran the county’s COVID-19 testing “super-sites” during the pandemic under the name 360 Clinic. 360 PACE is also a Nguyen brother company.

The Nguyen family businesses include a real estate firm, Yorba Myrtle LLC, which was poised to profit enormously from an eight-digit Tustin property deal with CalOptima in 2023. Do signed that deal as the chair of CalOptima’s board at the time.

After Do was indicted, CalOptima officials said they voted to scrutinize contracts entered into during his tenure. While those contracts were under scrutiny, Hang Nguyen reached out to Helleland about the health center. And CalOptima officials learned she'd reached out earlier about the Tustin deal.

About the Tustin property deal

The Tustin deal was conditioned upon getting approval from the city of Tustin for CalOptima’s planned use for the property as a daytime healthcare center and overnight recuperative care facility.

Hang Nguyen's name shows up in emails, obtained by LAist through public records requests, in back and forths with Veronica Carpenter, chief of staff to CalOptima’s chief executive, and David Tang, Gary Nguyen’s partner in Yorba Myrtle, the real estate firm that owned the Tustin site.

In one email, Hang Nguyen introduces herself to Carpenter, a former deputy chief of staff for Andrew Do, as a state Department of Public Health employee “who oversees all healthcare facilities.” At one point, Hang Nguyen offers to join a meeting with city officials to “explain further on the benefits of the proposed program” although, again, she had no official role in the proposed project.

Ultimately, the city rejected the proposed facility and the property deal fell through. By then, the county had put $750,000 into escrow for the project — $450,000 was forfeited to Yorba Myrtle.

About the whistleblower lawsuit that derailed 360 PACE

Before the Tustin property deal, the Nguyen brothers had a pandemic-era deal with Orange County through the company 360 Clinic to provide drive-through testing at the Anaheim Convention Center and OC Fairgrounds.

In May 2024, a former senior employee at 360 Clinic sued, alleging she was abruptly fired after voicing opposition to what she claims were executives’ plans to illegally boost their reimbursement from the federal government and private insurance providers for COVID-19 testing. The former employee, who was hired to oversee billing and regulatory compliance, also alleged that company executives conspired to:

• Refer patients from their testing sites to physicians groups, including ones in which they held financial interests, in violation of anti-kickback laws.  

• Bill the federal government and insurance companies more for specialized testing than was medically necessary.
• Double bill the federal government and private insurance for the same patients.

CalOptima officials said they first learned about the lawsuit this January from an Orange County Register article. They promptly asked the board to consider temporarily rescinding their support for 360 PACE’s Little Saigon health center while the lawsuit played out.

Last month, an O.C. Superior Court judge ruled that the whistleblower lawsuit against 360 Clinic can go forward, despite defendants’ efforts to force the complaint to be handled through private arbitration. The next court date in the case is scheduled for July 31.

360 PACE pulls the plug on Little Saigon health center

As the forensic probes sought by CalOptima and the Orange County Board of Supervisors get underway, officials from both agencies told LAist they don’t yet know when those results will be made public. But the concerns have already felled at least one project.

On a recent visit to the site of 360 PACE’s planned health hub for Little Saigon’s elderly residents, half-unpacked boxes sat in what would have been a waiting room. The company’s logo, a pink flower next to the name “360 PACE” was stenciled on the wall behind the reception desk. The location sits on a well-trafficked commercial corridor, just a few blocks from Westminster City Hall.

Pfeifer, the company spokesperson, told LAist in an email that 360 PACE had decided to pull the plug on the project. “This was a difficult choice, as 360 PACE had invested years of its time, millions of dollars and developed a program that would provide culturally competent care to underserved seniors, especially Vietnamese and API populations in Orange County,” Pfeifer wrote.

He blamed the decision on “numerous regulatory delays and bureaucratic hurdles” and said the high cost of maintaining the facility without patients was no longer sustainable. “The emotional and financial toll on our team has been substantial," Pfeifer wrote.

Paul Hoang, who runs a mental health clinic in Little Saigon and sits on the board of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Orange County chapter, said a health center like the one proposed by 360 PACE is desperately needed in the community. Many people in the first wave of Vietnamese refugees to arrive in O.C., in the late 1970s, are reaching an age where they can no longer care for themselves.

“Within the next five to 10 years, there’s going to be an epidemic in the Vietnamese community of elders with no one equipped to care for them,” he said, especially for those with Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

Hoang said, whether or not the whistleblower’s fraud allegations against the founders of 360 Clinic and 360 PACE are substantiated, “the allegations themselves have a ripple impact, they cause people to lose trust.

“In terms of needs and missed opportunity here, it’s going to be a huge setback,” he said.

LAist correspondent Nick Gerda and senior reporter Ted Rohrlich contributed to this report.

Coming next: Inside Gary and Larry Nguyen’s multimillion dollar business dealings with Orange County.