I know that if a prosecutor wants to convict of medicare fraud, it's just a matter of looking long enough and deep enough and you will find an error.
Any error then can be compounded into multiple charges that include wire fraud as the banking portion of getting paid invariably crosses state lines.
This is not just true of physicians, almost anyone can be convicted of something if examined close enough. There are thousands of laws on the books and we all have violated some law somewhere unknowingly.
On the other hand I have also been involved with removing unethical physcians from a hospital practice.
When examining the records only the most egregious of records are forwarded to prosecutors for action.
It is impossible to know which of these is what has happened to this physician.
Well, if some of the comments on the fox article are indicative of what happened:
Dr Leighton Smith ordered surgery on a patient of Dr Natales’ against Dr Natale’s advice and judgement…Smith then sent another economic competitor of Dr Natale’s in to operate on the woman…twice…one day after the other….hoping to prove Dr Natale had not done the surgery he said he had done a year earlier…when Dr Natale had saved the woman from a serious anyeurism surgery where she almost bled out. Dr Natale did save her and did put the patch on the aneurysm exactly as he said he had done….
Dr Painter and Dr Smith wanted to prove Dr Natale wrong…but in their quest to prove Dr Natale wrong…they not only proved Dr Natale right (the woman did not need surgery and she did have a patched aneurysm from the previous year )… Dr Painter at Dr Leighton Smith’s direction to operate and also to take pictures inside the woman….cost that woman her life. How awful. How irresponsible …How final