Doctor accused of fraud and misdiagnosing patients to fund 'opulent lifestyle'
Source: CNN
Zapata went to see Dr. Jorge Zamora-Quezada a little more than five years ago because one of her knees was bothering her. The rheumatologist told her that she had arthritis and that he'd give her injections "to strengthen the cartilage" in her knee, she said.
Her husband asked, "Why are you giving her so many injections?" The doctor reassured them that the treatment would help
But Zapata, 70, of McAllen, Texas, said the medication didn't help and might have been making things worse: There was discoloration on her legs. Other doctors raised concern about the treatments, and her family doctor even told her she didn't have arthritis.
Zapata was not the only patient given treatment she might not have needed, according to a joint federal and local investigation.
A task force investigating Zamora-Quezada announced Monday that he was being indicted in a fraud case involving $240 million in claims that were in part based on "fraudulent statements" to be submitted to health care benefit programs, resulting in $50 million paid to the doctor.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/15/health/texas-doctor-medical-fraud-bn/index.html
I have seen stories like this before, and two ideas stand out. The greed of these doctors is incredible. It has no end..All they want is "more
...Second, doctors who take the government's money in this way, or steal from the patients they treat, are sure that they will never get caught. The arrogance is beyond anything imaginable. If someone robs a bank, they have a feeling that they will likely get caught.
...These doctors and this one in particular, are sure no one will ever question what they do. They think the government is "too stupid" or "too busy" to even look at this. He is a doctor, why would he "lie" about treatment. No one will look into it this doctor thinks.
...I guess he is wrong on many counts.
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Health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors motivated by money always do what's best for the patient.
Here in the United States even wealthy people with "platinum" health insurance plans can get inappropriate or even dangerous medical care from unethical doctors.
One of my own doctors recently retired and I don't blame him. He was clearly one of the good guys, he went into medicine for all the right reasons, but in the last couple of years he was an assembly line supervisor spending more time on the computer than face-to-face practicing medicine. Computers and increasingly intrusive insurance companies have only increased the "paperwork" doctors have to do.
As Perseus says above, doctors are like human body mechanics. Finding a good doctor or a good mechanic here in the U.S.A. isn't easy. Personally, I want a mechanic who won't be put off by my JB Weld or salvage yard parts home repairs, and won't do unnecessary repairs using absurdly expensive parts. Similarly I want a doctor who pays attention to, and speaks plainly about, any sort alternative medicine I've explored, and one who will always choose an appropriate generic prescription over the latest expensive "ask your doctor" television bullshit.
If I was emperor of the U.S.A. I'd nationalize the whole bloody mess and reconstitute it as something between the United Kingdom's National Health Service and Canada's single payer system.
Here in the real world I'm a huge supporter of Obamacare. Years ago my wife was seriously ill and we ran a COBRA plan to the bitter end and were left in a terrifying place as my wife was on a waiting list for our state's "high risk" pool. Fortunately she was accepted to that before she suffered any serious setbacks and is healthy today. We're insured through her work, but it's most certainly not a platinum or any other precious metal plan and I haven't yet got a regular primary care doctor who knows me, and it seems possible I never will.
