I want to go at this from a little bit different
angle. First off, putting a healthcare
professional in a prison for up coding his
billing, has the world gone crazy? I pay taxes,
these taxes get higher ever year. I have no
problem paying to keep a dangerous person off
the street, though I am a strong supporter of
the death penalty. But to pay to in prison a man
who spent the majority of his life helping
others, spent years dedicating himself to
education, for up coding?
A man who may or may not have made an agreement
with the courts because he could not afford a
heavy legal bill, a man who has never shown any
belligerence or purposely hurt another
individual (I do not know this physician
personally), and put him in jail with harden
criminals, because he possibly billed
inappropriately, sheeet!
Give me a break, I know that I practice in the
most regulated profession in the world. And yet,
my state organization ask me to help recruit
young people into our profession. Sorry, no can
do! I love what I do, but I, and the rest of you
out there, know we are no longer respected,
appreciated, or treated as equals of any other
profession, I am not talking about health care
professionals, I am not talking about our
patients, I am talking about our "government".
If this man was truly a criminal and was
intentionally stealing from our government (as
the government steals from us), that is still
not sufficient reason to put him behind bars, or
even house arrest. At the very most, I would
accept is a TEMPORARY SUSPENSION of his
license. And even that is difficult for me to
approve. No make him pay back the money-if he
really owes it. Allow him to continue to work
and monitor him for repeating the offense. Now a
second offense I would be more likely to suspend
his license, but I still would not see any
imprisonment as necessary.
A similar action was rewarded to a doctor for un
bundling in Alaska, he spent five years in
prison. He has never been able to get his
license to practice medicine again. What a waste
of education and talent.
Keep kicking doctors, and let's just see what
happens.
Wm. Barry Turner, BSN, DPM, Royston, GA,
claret32853@ymail.com
It is okay just because the dollar amount is
low? Making even $10 for billing knowingly
incorrectly is too much! Some podiatrists in MI
have been doing this for over 30 years. My dad
was treated by one such podiatrist year's ago
until I challenged this practitioner about it.
At the time, he was the Medicare liaison to Blue
Cross of MI! Talk about a fox in charge of the
chicken coop. He insulted me by telling me he
would see my dad for free as a courtesy to a
family of a colleague.
I would rather have had him stop committing
Medicare fraud. I went to a very respected
colleague Dr. Irv Kanat for help. He was kind
enough to address this individual personally on
the issue as well. However, it didn’t stop the
doctor. My dad never went to him again, but my
parent's friends verified he was still billing
the same way. For all I know, he is still
billing this way. His justification to me on the
phone was that ”I am not trimming nails for $35
or $40!”
It has spread to Oregon too as one of my local
colleagues has been doing 2 avulsions on
patients every two months when in reality she is
just doing qualified primary care. It pays
better when billed that way, but is fraudulent
any way you slice it. I wrote in to Codingline
and asked to clarify “avulsion” because it
appeared to me that either I had learned it
wrong when I was in school or the definition had
changed. I was glad to hear I was correct. I
asked Codingline to pass it on to the readership
of PM Magazine which would stop this billing
issue before more doctors get caught.
The definition of avulsion has not changed and
spicule removal without injection anesthesia is
NOT an avulsion!
It hurts us all. I know the reimbursement is not
as good but it is what it is. We can complain
from our offices or we can sit in jail and
lament on the money we once made. Your choice.
Gerald Peterson, DPM, West Linn, OR,
DRP@ifixft.com
