The following is an excerpt from MedPage Today.
An orthopedic surgeon was sentenced to 7 years in prison after he was accused of administering excessive and medically unnecessary x-rays to healthy patients, according to a report from the Sacramento Bee.
Gary Wisner, MD, who practiced in Lodi, ordered medically unjustifiable x-rays for 10 patients from 2012 to 2016. The scans were then improperly billed to both Medicare and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
“Gary Wisner used both his patients and state resources to line his own pockets,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “Due to his dishonest behavior, patients at his clinic had to undergo unnecessary medical tests so he could steal from the state’s Medi-Cal funds.”
Wisner administered x-rays to his patients even during routine office visits, and he scanned multiple parts of the body even if their condition did not merit it, the investigators found.
Read more here.
Medicare fraud is rampant but I would like to see more accountability in larger extensive cases, is this excessive punitive consequenses for Dr. Wisner ?
It seems that way to me. Maybe the prosecutors suspected him of hundreds, but they selected a few that were the most clearly provable.
I would think that taking away someone’s medical license would be deterrent enough in most cases.
My thought’s exactly. Seems like a very small number for a 7 year sentence.
Would love to see more physicians have to pay a price when my insurance says a test they ordered was “medically unnecessary”. When I had my cancer treatment I had tens of thousands of dollars I was on the hook for because insurance said that some tests weren’t medically necessary. I don’t think that a prison sentence is generally appropriate, though.
10 patients? That’s not very many. And it would have been the radiologists, not the ortho, who would have made money and not very much of it with so few patients. I don’t understand this,
10 instances over 4 yrs?? He hardly lined his pockets
They focus on this? When dangerous people roam the streets. Breaking the law over and over but still get no cash bail.
Rob Bonta is a bully. He picks targets that harm “The State” while the people are subjected, rape, robbery, theft and the collapse of neighborhoods because of unchecked crime. To say Bonta is a useless ideologue is kind, he’s a fanatical socialist.. Not much different than any democrat DAs who are soft on hardened criminals but go after Trump Organization in obvious political targeting.