Three California doctors arrested for surgery scam

It looks like the popularity of cosmetic surgery has led many people to create various schemes just to take advantage of the situation and acquire for themselves some huge amounts of cash.

While this is not in the category of tragic cosmetic surgery cases, this can still be considered a serious problem in the cosmetic surgery industry which needs to be addressed immediately.

Just recently, three Californian doctors were arrested due to their participation in a medical insurance fraud for performing medical procedures on healthy people with the knowledge that the patients were being recruited in exchange for money or low cost cosmetic surgery.

Dr. Michael Chan, an obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. William Wilson Hampton Jr., a general surgeon and Dr. Mario Z. Rosenberg, a gastroenterologist, were accused of performing 1,037 procedures in what’s dubbed as the Unity Outpatient Surgery Center scheme. This resulted in insurance billing for the facilities fees alone that exceeded $30 million. Unity received more than $1.5 million in payment as a result of the surgeries performed by the doctors.

Chan was the owner and Medical Director of Unity Outpatient Surgery Center in Buena Park, California. He contracted almost complete control of Unity to non-licensed administrators in exchange for 2 percent of the center’s fraudulent profits. He is accused of performing procedures on 208 patients which resulted in more than $9.5 million in insurance billing.

Rosenberg is accused of performing 646 procedures on 554 patients which resulted in the fraudulent billing to insurance companies of more than $9 million, while Hampton is accused of performing 180 procedures on 178 patients.

Medical protocols were allegedly ignored by these doctors in performing the surgeries. They performed surgeries on patients on consecutive days instead of while under one anesthesia. They are also accused of not meeting the patients prior to operating. In addition, they are said to be not following up with patients after the procedure was completed. Lastly, they did not obtain necessary medical information before they operate on the patients.

The three have been charged with 47 felony counts, where the bail is anywhere from $1 million to over $2 million. They are facing up to 50 years in prison. Let justice be served.