Will Perform Heart Surgery for Food
Greed knows no bounds. This kind of stuff embarrasses our profession so much:
Moses deGraft-Johnson, MD, a cardiovascular surgeon in Tallahassee, Florida, admitted to performing invasive and unnecessary angiography procedures, as well as falsely billing insurance companies for more than $29 million.
Moses deGraft-Johnson, MD is the doc who saved 50 Cent’s life after the rapper presented to his trauma center with multiple gunshot wounds in 2000
I am a family doc (newly retired). I did not make a ton of money each year. I did some other projects that made me some money but really I was frugal and lived out of debt. This dude was a cardiovascular surgeon. They make a million a year! So, here is my dilemma. How much money do you really need? For this dude, a lot. Other than probably going to jail, the DOJ said it is also “aggressively pursuing” deGraft’s forfeitable assets in the U.S. and abroad, including luxury vehicles, jewelry, homes in New York, Miami, and Houston, as well as more than $1 million in cash.
You know, I am not against some docs making money in an ethical manner. Hey, if you spent 4 years in college, 4 years in medical school and then another 6 or 7 in residency then by all means, go get yours. You had to be the best of the best to be a cardiovascular surgeon. There are only so many of these doctors. I am ok with that $1 million a year. But do you to be a crook and steal $30 million more? I think not.
Maybe we will see Dr. Moses deGraft-Johnson, MD on the streets with a sign that says, “Will perform heart surgery for food”.
I don’t get the insurers. I have to fight for months to get paid $5 for doing an EKG on a patient with chest pain, but they willingly pay out millions during a calendar year to individual doctors. Can’t they set an arbitrary limit and say if your charges are over this during a certain period, we’re going to look into it?
Because you document facts and those that commit fraud document lies of symptoms/test results that compels insurance companies to pay, to avoid bad press or lawsuits.
I knew a cardiologist (setup his office as part of a hospital system), took him three months to get on staff at a particular hospital. All the while he was doing stress tests in his office. The day after he got privileges, he had his staff call the patients and tell ALL of them that they needed immediate treatment. Even those whose stress test was done three months ago. (Circa 1995)
Dr. Doug, I saw this and agree. In retirement in my ONE house I’m spending time going through boxes of old medical articles and journals, and I repair old cars against my wife’s insistence that I buy a new one (waiting for solar-powered!). When we were in med school in the early 1970s most doctors made about $40,000 a year, and you decided your specialty based on what you liked or what your mentors made you like (which is why so many in my class embraced the “new” specialty of family medicine). Then the insurance companies started excessive reimbursement which allowed even honest heart surgeons and orthopods, etc., to make over a million a year. At least Moses is going to downsize the easy way…by going to jail! As an aside regarding the idiots at insurance companies, I dutifully went for my annual BCBS “wellness” check (and a $25 gift certificate) and later received a letter from BCBS saying they denied the charge for the visit! I did something I rarely do…I wrote a letter critical of that and signed it with my MD suffix. I did get a phone message from some BCBS stooge which I didn’t answer.
You know, it is one thing to hustle selling cars or furnaces, but when it comes to health care, it is damnable. Hope he rots in the worst prison in the country. The WORST.