Nearly a decade after Bill Reynolds and Mark Sersansie first learned about one of the maximum outrageous medical frauds in California history, they met with some of the patients who say they’re nonetheless laid low with the devastating outcomes of this rip-off. After surgical treatment, it was not anything, however, ache-filled days,” stated patient Derika Moses. “I could not take a seat; I could not stroll. I could not be a parent.
I didn’t want to live anymore,” said affected person Gisela Fabila.
You failed to want to stay anymore?” Alex Ferrer, the host of “Whistleblower,” requested. No. One time, I was planning, ‘I’m going to move outdoor, and I’m going to run’ — said, ‘I’m going to kill …'” Fabila recalled in tears. Ferrer, police officer-became-attorney-turned decide, takes visitors on Sersansie and Reynolds’ journey from the hallways of southern California hospitals to the houses of patients who suffered the outcomes of this rip-off in the ultra-modern “Whistleblower” episode, “The Billion Dollar Back Surgery Scam: Patients in Pain and Peril,” airing Friday, June 21 at 8/7c on CBS.
Together the men might find out an unlawful scheme. Intermediaries were paid to discover patients who had back problems stemming from paintings-related injuries, and docs had been paid kickbacks to perform the spinal surgical procedures at precise hospitals. One of the physicians … wanted … Super Bowl tickets, airfare, and inn,” stated Sersansie, who labored in income for a California medical supply corporation. Many sufferers say the rip-off left them in unbearable ache from surgeries; some say they didn’t need it in the first location.
This was completely a medically needless surgical operation that turned into completed,” said patient Josh Lash. Ultimately, they would analyze that infirmaries were now not simplest overbilling for the spinal hardware but, commonly, dangerous counterfeit hardware turned into implanted into the backs of harmless human beings. I’m searching at invoices that ranged anywhere from $350,000 to $475,000,” said Reynolds, a scientific fraud investigator. Moses has had a good deal of her spinal hardware removed. “We’ve had specialists come out,” she stated, “which have identified my screws as being counterfeit screws.
Counterfeit screws were mixed in with FDA-permitted screws made via a good medical device company from South Korea. Those screws pass into sufferers’ … bones … little pieces of these threads can ruin off in people’s bodies and come to be of their tissue,” lawyer Justin Berger explained. “It can purpose critical headaches.” Berger represents the patients interviewed through “Whistleblower,” Sersansie and Reynolds, and others who have sued based totally on the scam. The pain has traveled up to my neck, to my shoulders,” Moses stated. “I’m high-quality. It’s far due to the counterfeit hardware that turned into positioned in my again. Do you believe you studied your physician knew that the hardware was counterfeit?” Ferrer requested the organization of sufferers.
Yes, in reality,” they replied.
Every certainly one of you said that, without hesitation,” Ferrer cited. “Why do you think that?”
Greed. Money,” Moses answered.
It’s critical to blow the whistle in this,” said Reynolds. “Somebody has to step forward and bring attention to the value of this problem. There is no manner to tell how many human beings have been implanted with the counterfeit hardware, due to the fact, in step with lawyer Justin Berger, “you’d open up their backs, take out their screws, and have someone examine them. … it truly is the best manner you could inform if they may be counterfeit or now not, because they didn’t sing the lot numbers nicely.” Some estimate that the number of sufferers implanted with the knock-off hardware might be within the hundreds — if not lots.
There has been a federal criminal investigation into the rip-off, known as “Operation Spinal Cap,” and the Department of Justice has stated the fraudulent claims associated with this scheme span a 15-year length and cumulatively total extra than $950 million. The scheme worried $40 million in unlawful kickbacks paid to doctors and different medical experts in exchange for referring hundreds of sufferers for surgical procedures at California hospitals. One of thescheme architectse, Michael Drobot, the previous owner of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, is currently serving five years in federal prison and has to forfeit $10 million. Paul Randall, every other predominant discern within the scam, cooperated with the federal government, spent much less than 12 months in jail, and has now been launched.
One of the most stunning convictions changed into California State Senator Ron Calderon. Calderon turned into convicted of accepting bribes in alternate for influencing California lawmakers to preserve that lucrative loophole — the one that allowed for the inflated hardware reimbursements — open. He was sentenced to 42 months in jail and served less than 2 years. No one has been criminally charged with the expertise of the implantation of counterfeit spinal hardware.
