Posted on 12/27/2006 10:45:02 AM PST by Jo Nuvark
Manufactured for Money
How slick lawyers have turned a genuine health crisis into a ripoff you won't believe.
Dr. George (snip) Martindale's name was on several thousand documents claiming people suffered from an incurable work-related respiratory disease. (Attorney Daniel) Mulholland asked Martindale if he had ever intended his work to be used as an official diagnosis in a lawsuit or for any other purpose. "No, sir," he replied. (snip) Martindale went on to explain his role in what a federal court concluded was a massive legal scam.
He had expanded his radiology practice by becoming a certified "B-reader," which meant his evaluations of chest x-rays could be used in court. Martindale was providing his assessments to N&M, a screening company in Pascagoula, Mississippi, run by a junior college dropout that administered tests to diagnose silicosis or asbestosis, two unrelated diseases at the heart of a nationwide explosion of lawsuits.
(Excerpt) Read more at rd.com ...
Good thing that Washington in run and owned by corrupt lawyers!
Good thing that Washington is run and owned by corrupt lawyers!
This sounds like a real bargain. A friend of mine recently had some neuro tests done and whoever interpreted those tests charged $4,000 for the report. Nobody knows if that interpretation took 3 minutes or 15 days.
The one single out-of-control industry in the US today is the medical/pharmaceutical industry. Even during Katrina price gouging was outlawed, but the medical industry gets away with it every single day. For the large part, not all, they are theives posing as caring angels. Anybody that can sleep peacefully in luxury made off the misery of others has no conscience at all. Sorry to you FReeper docs who take lavish vacations courtesy the pharmaceutical companies, but your reality isn't the same as the rest of the country.
If you read the entire article, the scam is far deeper than pharmaceuticals. It's about bogus claims against industry.
bump
Wow, a doctor commiting fraud. Who ever heard of such a thing? I think fraudulant billing is a mandatory major in med school.
Doctors are certainly not exempt from temptation. If you tempt that little greedy devil in anyone's heart long enough and strong enough... Anyone can weaken, eventually. It's like a form of torture almost.
You may think RLS is a nothing thing, but if you have tried to get to sleep when it comes on, you might think differently. It's real and it can drive you batty with the constant flexing of your legs trying to get them to relax. the ads for this problem just started in the last year and besides, there is no connection with sleazy lawyers. Check out RLS on the internet. It's real.
How can you say "it's about bogus claims against the industry" when it is "the industry" supporting the claims, which includes doctors, radiologists, a myriad of other health professionals, pharmaceuticals, lawyers determined to bring justice (for a price), insurance companies who paid for the justice the lawyers brought, legitimate companies who reimbursed the insurance companies then went bankrupt. And why? Because the medical industry did not have a definitive answer. Don't you think the defense put up doctors who could not definitively say "this is a scam and here's the proof"? And present incontrovertible proof or at least documentation sufficient to create a doubt? Of course not, because medicine is an art, open to the personal interpretaion of the artist, not a science.
It is the same as hiring an artist to paint a family portrait. When the outline is done, pay him/her a fee. When the blue tones are done pay another fee. And likewise for the brown, red and yellow tones. Then finally when the thing is done you go to pick it up and say "Good Lord. That's not my family, it looks like the Bundy's." Too bad you still owe the artist $2,000.
The medical industry is the only one I know of that can demand payment and deliver nothing. If I buy furniture that is not delivered, if I pay the plumber who did nothing, I have a claim in court. Not so with the medical industry unless you are braced for years of medical malpractice, which is hard to prove because medicine is an esoteric practice.
The bogus claims against the industry are NOT claims against the medical industry as you suggest and if you read the entire article. Neither doctors or lawyers suffered in the end. If I misinterpreted all this, then send me a list of doctors that paid millions and lawyers that paid millions or either that went out of business as a result of these claims.
If the government's giving away free cheese (remember that?), even rich people who hate cheese will line up and fight each other for some to take back to their Cadillacs.
I've reached Medicare age and I'm bitterly amused at the way my doctor spreads the taxpayer wealth around to his colleagues. Any little ailment, from aching arches to snoring, gets a referral to an expensive specialist who then further enriches imaging and pharmaceutical companies.
I guess I should be grateful, and for the most part I am. But I think of many folks who desperately need care and don't have health insurance or a government program. There simply HAS to be a better way of making sure sick people get the care they need without bureaucratic waste, doctor and insurance company profiteering and government idiocy. I'm not smart enough to know what it is but the present system is inequitable and a health-delivery/economic disaster-in-the-making.
"For the large part, not all, they are theives posing as caring angels"
WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!!!
I really get sick and tired of this. You don't like doctors, next time you are ill go to an accupuncturist or an aromatherapist. You still have that choice in America.
Doctors are certainly not exempt from temptation. If you tempt that little greedy devil in anyone's heart long enough and strong enough... Anyone can weaken, eventually. It's like a form of torture almost.
When more than 1 out of three bills are overbilled it's much more institutional than an occasional ethical slip.
You misunderstand. The bogus claims are against companies
that MAY have exposed their employees to asbestos. I wasn't
talking about the medical industry. In this case, a disreputable
Doctor lent his "expertise" so that Lawyers could make billions
of dollars in class action suits against "industry".
Sorry for the confusion.
most doctors don't have a clue what "coding" is billed for.. they are usually given a list of things to document in order to collect from the insurance industry.
the dirty birds in this scam are both the doctors and the lawyers.
The doctors are the ones selling their souls, because all they're known for is "asbestosis" expert or "expert witness". Mainly as hired guns. Very few will testify against the person hiring them......and that's the problem. A lot of medicine isn't black or white. However from what it seems there is some envy about what they get paid.
My question has always been....what would you pay to save your life? Kids used to die of strep throat. Women died in childbirth as late as the 40's and 50's due to bleeding and other complications that are very rare now. (remember the old movies about guys smoking and worrying during childbirth)... it was a serious concern that the mother or child might die or have serious complications. Thanks to anesthesia and OB techniques like a C-section, there rarely is a death due to dystocia or bleeding.
Medicine is like our society.... greedy thieves, ego maniacs, drunks, drug addicts, hard workers, dedicated persons....etc, etc.
Be wary when quoting statistics about how many people die due to "negligence" or poor care. The richest most powerful people in the whole world come to this country for medical care. Why?
Restless leg syndrome is what keeps me from getting fat. LOL!
The big lie that I'm fuming about is the "Human Papilloma
Virus" (HPV). Commercials show little girls aghast to find
that HPV causes cervical cancer. The cure is a vaccination.
Yet not one time does the commercial tell the audience that
HPV is a sexually transmitted disease.
http://www.cdc.gov/STD/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm
Better our young should die from cervical cancer, than to
educate them about the dangers of promiscuous sex. Sheesh!!!
That's not why he's doing it. He could care less if the other doc is making money. It's the malpractice threat. If he/she misses something they're likely to get sued.
BTW - many physicians are now employees of the hospitals and in addition their fees are regulated. They don't make any more money if they see more patients. The hospitals charge as much as the insurance companies will pay. Why? Because they're taking care of millions of illegals and others who don't pay.
Unfortunately if you don't have insurance you will be charged much more than the insurance companies are charged. If a test costs you $100 it may cost the insurance company only $25.
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