Cosmetic surgery dearly costs city schools
Usage tripled in six years, going from $1 million to nearly $9 million"Cosmetic surgery costs for Buffalo Public Schools employees have skyrocketed from less than $1 million in 2004 to nearly $9 million last year.
The vast majority of those procedures — nine out of 10 of them — were chemical peels, laser hair removal, skin rejuvenation and other skin treatments. All of them were elective procedures that required a doctor's approval.
The number of procedures tripled during the same period, with more than 8,000 of them performed for school employees in 2009. Because the district is self-insured for its cosmetic surgery rider, taxpayers cover the entire cost directly, district officials said.
Board of Education member Christopher Jacobs is alarmed by the increase in costs. "On the surface, it smacks of abuse," he said."
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/schools/article233194.eceTo fill in some gaps on this story, the rider has been present in one of the health plans for 30 years. Procedures are supposed to only happen with a doctor's permission, but it looks like a few of the local cosmetic surgery places (8 in total) have an in-house physician approving every person walking through the door. I think the article mentions this but approximately 500 employees account for the majority of the claims. Financial control group is scheduled to present its full findings to the school board next week and is recommending investigating both the surgeons and employees for fraud.
The CFO of Buffalo public schools is saying the $9 million spent this year could have gone to hire more teachers and reduced class sizes. She also maintains the union was asked to give up the rider which refused. The BTF, the local teacher union, president has responded with the union has agreed to give it up in the next signed contract--only problem is, there hasn't been a signed contract in Buffalo since 2004.
This has been news for awhile, but the study was just released and is front page on the newspaper and lead story on all of our news channels (If you google abc buffalo or cbs or nbc it is all right there.).
One of my best friends is married to a 2nd year BPS teacher. In the past 3 weeks he has had a chemical peel, a microdermabrasion, laser hair removal on his back and is 4 sessions through a laser weight reduction program.
It is going to be interesting to see how the board meeting next week plays out.