Doctor Faces Suits Over Cardiac Stents

[Blue_Tires]

Word quickly reached top executives at Abbott Laboratories that a Baltimore cardiologist, Dr. Mark Midei, had inserted 30 of the company’s cardiac stents in a single day in August 2008, “which is the biggest day I remember hearing about,” an executive wrote in a celebratory e-mail.

Two days later, an Abbott sales representative spent $2,159 to buy a whole, slow-smoked pig, peach cobbler and other fixings for a barbecue dinner at Dr. Midei’s home, according to a report being released Monday by the Senate. The dinner was just a small part of the millions in salary and perks showered on Dr. Midei for putting more stents in more patients than almost any other cardiologist in Baltimore.

The Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, started investigating Dr. Midei in February after a series of articles in The Baltimore Sun said that Dr. Midei at St. Joseph Medical Center, in Towson, Md., had inserted stents in patients who did not need them, reaping high reimbursements from Medicare and private insurance.

The senators solicited 10,000 documents from Abbott and St. Joseph. Their report, provided in advance to The New York Times, concludes that Dr. Midei “may have implanted 585 stents which were medically unnecessary” from 2007 to 2009. Medicare paid $3.8 million of the $6.6 million charged for those procedures.

The report also describes the close relationship between Dr. Midei and Abbott Labs, which paid consulting fees to the cardiologist after he left the hospital. “The serious allegations lodged against Dr. Midei regarding the medically unnecessary implantation of cardiac stents did not appear to deter Abbott’s interest in assisting him,” the report states.

The case has turned into a legal quagmire for Dr. Midei and St. Joseph, which have been sued by hundreds of patients who claim they received unnecessary implants. Some doctors say the case has revealed a level of inappropriate care that is more common than most patients know.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/health/06stent.html?src=me&ref=general

[rfranklin]

1. Reminds me of the cancer doctor in town who drives a Ferrari and...

built a 5,000 square foot addition to his his two million dollar home with the proceeds of drug sales to desparate cancer patients.

did you know that cancer doctors are the only doctors who are their own pharmacists?

Drug Sales Bring Huge Profits, And Scrutiny, to Cancer Doctors
By REED ABELSON
Published: January 26, 2003
Among cancer doctors, it is called the chemotherapy concession. At a time when overall spending on prescription drugs is soaring, cancer specialists are pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars each year by selling drugs to patients -- a practice that almost no other doctors follow.

The cancer specialists can make huge sums -- often the majority of their practice revenue -- from the difference between what they pay for the drugs and what they charge insurers and government programs. But some private health insurers are now studying ways to reduce these profits, and the issue is getting close attention in Congress.

Typically, doctors give patients prescriptions for drugs that are then filled at pharmacies. But cancer doctors, known as oncologists, buy the chemotherapy drugs themselves, often at prices discounted by drug manufacturers trying to sell more of their products, and then administer them intravenously to patients in their offices.

The practice also creates a potential conflict of interest for these doctors, who must help patients decide whether to undergo or continue chemotherapy if it is not proving to be effective, and which drugs to use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/us/drug-sales-bring-huge-profits-and-scrutiny-to-cancer-doctors.html

[Blue_Tires]

2. that's just insane...

[Skidmore]

3. And doctors wonder why they are perceived of as

leeches sometimes.