Sunday, January 31, 2016

Attorney James R. Moriarty Responds to CRIME WATCH DAILEY: Pediatric dentist accused of mistreating young patients

For 6 years I have attempted to stop what I consider to be highly abusive dental mistreatment of our youngest and most vulnerable children, mostly without significant success. 

Dental abuse ranging from lying to the moms, pulling teeth without pain relief, grossly excessive use of stainless steel caps, unnecessary baby root canals and widespread use of physical restraint devices on infants as young as 18 months. 

For reasons I cannot comprehend, many of the honest and legitimate dentists sit silently, the dental boards responsible for policing dentist do nothing and most of the criminal and civil state authorities charged with protecting the public, and the taxpayers do little or nothing.  

I can identify hundreds of dental offices secretly and illegally owned by private equity firms ranging from the money behind the propane gas we use to cook on in the back yard, billionaires from the middle east and even the husband and wife who started one of the largest computer companies in the world.  

I've complained at every level of county and state government and produced evidence to show this illegal and abusive conduct.  All almost for naught.

One 27 year old Medicaid mom, severely pissed off by the visible and obvious abusive treatment of her daughter single handedly brought this guy down.  Turned down by the police, ignored by the dental board and refused by lawyers who she sought to hire to stop this behavior, she turned to Facebook and the court of public opinion and then the stuff hit the fan. 

My hat is off to this mom.  She has done more to protect the public than legions of trial lawyers, endless numbers of state and local authorities and every sit-on-their hands dental board in the country.

My hat is also off to John Phillips, a brilliant, aggressive young lawyer who does not tremble at the thought of fighting  mano on mano in the court of public opinion. 
 


​Please watch this 15 minute video (3 segments):​


 


http://crimewatchdaily.com/2016/01/25/pediatric-dentist-accused-of-mistreating-hundreds-of-his-young-patients/


 
Law offices of James R. Moriarty
4119 Montrose, Suite 250
Houston, TX 77006

(713) 528-0700 office
(713) 528-1390 FAX
(713) 857-1212 cell
jim@moriarty.com
moriarty.com

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Contrasting Dental Medicaid Enforcement: Florida versus Texas


Dr. Michael W. Davis


Contrasting Dental Medicaid Enforcement: Florida versus Texas
By: Michael W. Davis, DDS

Dr. Michael W. Davis maintains a general dental practice in Santa Fe, NM. He serves as chairperson for Santa Fe District Dental Society Peer-Review. Dr. Davis also provides a fair amount of dental expert legal work for attorneys. He may be contacted via email: MWDavisDDS@comcast.net




Introduction
Both Florida and Texas share similarities in that both states have long standing Republican state legislatures, state attorney generals, and state governors. Likewise, both states enjoy highly diverse ethnic and economic population demographics. However, each state handles enforcement of dental Medicaid very differently.

Dental Medicaid fee schedule rates in Texas are some of the highest nationally, while Florida’s are at or near the bottom.1,2,3 Texas has attracted a huge bevy of corporate dental chain Medicaid providers, headquartered both in-state and out-of-state. Florida has a paucity of such interstate dental Medicaid corporate providers.

Although dental Medicaid fee schedule payouts are substantially higher in Texas, both states’ fee schedules fall below the UCR (usual and customary rates) of the average insurance company. With dental Medicaid remunerations below the overhead costs of most private dental practices, only a minority of licensed dentists sign on as Medicaid providers. Those doctors who obtain Medicaid credentialing generally do so to serve a limited number of patients on a charity basis, or work in the public sector. There are some disturbing exceptions.

There are a minority of “outlier” dentists whose goal is to scam the Medicaid program, and make little effort to cover their tracks.4-7 Added to this number are many more devious Medicaid fraudsters, in which only skilled dentist auditors can identify.

Florida dental regulatory authorities have been quicker to turn over cases of suspected Medicaid fraud and abuses to their state’s attorney general’s office. This has occurred far less frequently in Texas, despite Texas being a far more populous state with far greater numbers of dental Medicaid providers.

Extent and Examination of Dental Medicaid Fraud and Abuses
We’ve already learned from the recent limited examination (four states) by federal Health and Human Services- Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), that approximately 9-11% of dental Medicaid providers are grossly over-the-top in abusive Medicaid billings.4-7 These specific providers are termed “outliers”. Depending on the state reviewed, one-third to 50% is employed by large group practices (primarily corporate dental chains called “dental support organizations”, “DSOs”). One must remember, these are the worst of the Medicaid program violators, and not the majority with scams designed to “fly under the radar”. Outliers only represent the easy to identify, low hanging fruit.

Typically the cleverer Medicaid fraudsters (non-outlier cheats) upcode Medicaid services or provide gross over-treatment, which isn’t discovered as easily by a HHS-OIG audit.8 One common fraud technique is upcoding of dental sealants on permanent teeth, to multiple surface posterior resin restorations.9 Others place multiple steel crowns on deciduous (baby) teeth, which have minimal to no evidence of dental decay, or are soon to naturally exfoliate (naturally come out).10,11  Another favorite dental Medicaid scam has been the service of a pulpotomy on deciduous teeth (baby tooth root canal), into teeth with little caries (tooth decay) near the tooth’s nerve.12-14 In fact, the author has specifically heard this referenced as a “preventative pulpotomy”, in interviews with former corporate dental employees. Of course, the bitter cynicism and avarice towards the patient’s welfare by this terminology of “preventative pulpotomy” shouldn’t be lost on the dental profession, auditors, or the general public.
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Perhaps unique to Texas, we saw an entrenched old-boy element of the dental profession work to alter and amend standard accepted dental terminology, to expand Medicaid eligibility. Texas Medicaid orthodontics (corrective movement of teeth) eligibility required “ectopically erupted teeth”. Insiders simply changed the Medicaid definition of “ectopically erupted tooth” from the dental industry standard definition, to include any tooth which may be malpositioned, angled, tipped, slightly rotated, etc.15  These schemers circumvented the intent of the law, and lined their pockets either through providing direct Medicaid services or for-profit courses to dentists, on how to beat the system.16

An additional component of Texas dental Medicaid fraud-by-design was Medicaid payments not for completion of an orthodontic case, but for payments on a per-visit basis. Obviously, financial incentive was established to continually yo-yo patients in active treatment, in and out of a dental office. No consideration was afforded to transportation challenges for disadvantaged children. Further, there was a serious disincentive to complete orthodontic treatment in a timely manner, in the patient’s best interest. In the years 2009-2011 Medicaid orthodontic payments in Texas outstripped the payments for all other 49 states combined.17

Texas declined to provide dental Medicaid oversight and monitoring on the state level, and delegated this responsibility (for a significant fee to the taxpayer) to the highly discredited Xerox Corporation.18,19  The federal HHS-OIG agreed with Texas, that Xerox failed in their contractual obligations of dental Medicaid oversight. However, the federal Inspector General stated the State of Texas is ultimately responsible for the disturbingly remiss oversight.20

In fact, services of Xerox were so egregiously lax, that’s it’s difficult to see this as anything other than political pay-to-play. All the while, dental Medicaid fraudsters, both large and small were free to ply their trade in fraud-craft. Texas state authorities provided the illusionary mantle of oversight via a wasteful model of collusion, with big business/big government crony capitalism.

The most common Medicaid unlawful scheme of non-profit dental clinics (federally qualified health centers or FQHCs) is via abuse of “patient encounters”.21 To date, we’ve only see this frequent Medicaid scam addressed by government regulators to much extent in Washington and New York.22,23  This particular abuse of taxpayer money is a favorite with certain public health clinics, Native American title 638 clinics, and non-profit healthcare facilities. Generally we don’t see rank-and-file healthcare providers managing this particular fraud mechanism. Usually fraud is generated though the unlawful systems of directors and managers (some are physicians and dentists), who enjoy very inflated salaries and benefits, by cheating programs designed to serve the disadvantaged.

To its credit in Texas, the non-profit United Medical Centers Board of Directors (Maverick, Kinney, and Val Verde Counties) recently terminated employment of their Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director after an internal investigative audit.24 Unfortunately, I expect another miracle from the waters of Lourdes, before I anticipate Texas authorities to file a civil or criminal case against these Medicaid cheats within the public sector.

One would like to assume nonprofit organizations are distanced from scamming taxpayers. However, that assumption has proven inaccurate and very dangerous. Schemes defrauding the dental Medicaid program are highly pervasive, lucrative, and relatively easy to pull off. Dental Medicaid fraud and abuses are ubiquitous both in the private and public sectors. The largess which comes to those who defraud American taxpayers from dental Medicaid scams has in fact become an entrenched and fully accepted dental industry model of business.  

Handling and Mishandling of Dental Medicaid Cases
Both Texas and Florida have historically operated under a failed enforcement model of “pay and chase”.25,26 Medicaid payments are made to providers (or their corporate beneficial owners, usually DSOs) year after year without question or examination. If an audit is eventually generated, it then becomes a massive records undertaking. Government regulators usually lack funds to retain meaningful dentist auditors, to thoroughly review patient records and billings. Behind the 8-ball, government prosecutors nearly always settle cases for pennies on the dollar, and no admission of wrong-doing by violators.

By contrast, the dental insurance industry mandates pre-authorizations prior to a provider billing for a vast number of patient services. Questionable services and payments are better “nipped in the bud”. Payments are better held in check, not as easily getting out of hand.

Payment holds from the private insurance industry generally are upfront from the onset, on an individual case-by-case basis. By contrast, Medicaid payment holds are usually well down the road, and may represent many hundreds of thousands of dollars or even several million dollars. Medicaid payment holds are formulated by deviations in billings, which are assumed to represent patterns of fraud and abuse. Obviously, a long-term pattern of abusive billings must be established, prior to control of taxpayer (public) monies. Private insurance companies, which have their own set of difficulties, rarely allow fiscal problems to build to this crisis level.


Texas
Dr. Tuan "Terry" Truong
The government’s prosecution of Dr. Tuan “Terry” Truong is a case worth examination.27 Dr. Truong was employed by Kool Smiles Dental in Abilene, Texas, for over a year. After conviction for Medicaid fraud, Dr. Truong was fined and sentenced to federal prison for 18-months. The statement released by Kool Smiles Dental acknowledged their full cooperation with the government’s investigation and prosecution. Yet, Kool Smiles Dental monitors daily production metrics for each of their dentist providers. It seems inconceivable, corporate management didn’t fully realize the inappropriate and unlawful activities of Dr. Truong at a very early stage. Yet, government prosecutors were very willing to accept a low level dentist Medicaid cheat for a guaranteed felony conviction, versus those pulling the strings at higher levels. One is left to wonder what real rats could be convicted, if Dr. Truong were offered a deal to finger corporate management at the DSO level, or even private equity level.

Former Texas Attorney General (today Governor) Greg Abbott gave much ballyhoo to his settlement deal with alleged dental Medicaid fraudster, Dr. Richard Malouf for $1.2 million dollars.28 This settlement only represented pennies on the dollar for the true extent of the alleged fraud (many $10s of millions of dollars). Naturally, there was no admission of wrong-doing by Dr. Malouf, former owner of All Smiles Dental. 

Thursday, January 07, 2016

I found this ad found on Craig’s List; posted January 6, 2016.  My first thought is Reachout Healthcare America until I read the "Non For Profit".