- Joined
- Dec 23, 2017
- Messages
- 5
- Reaction score
- 2
I am currently working in a clinic and I know what I need to do, but I am scared to do it. I have never had any complaints against my license but I am afraid I may lose my license if I continue working where I am. I practice in a rural clinic in an underserved state in which non-providers are allowed to own and operate medical clinics. Naively I signed up with a mom and pop operation in which both owners only have a high school degree. I am the only physician although there are some counselors where I work.
I did not know this when I started working here but one of the clinic owner's sons, who lives with her, is a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer. The other son, who is involved in the clinic, did billing for a clinic that was shut down for insurance fraud. Her son was involved in the clinic as he did the billing, was brought up for Medicaid fraud charges but, unlike the others in the clinic, was not convicted. In short these are super shady people
The clinic I work at had one small pharmacy near them that recently closed. There is a hospital nearby that provides the same medical services and has a captive pharmacy. In order to be competitive/not go out of business, the clinic owner's son began offering a courier service to pick up the patients' medication and allow the patients to pick them up at the clinic instead of driving 1 hour to the nearest pharmacy. I often see patients just d/c from the hospital . The system was working well until around 2 months ago. Now the owner's son now doesn't pick up the patients' medication until 1 week or more (sometime 2-3 weeks) so the patient run out of their prescriptions. The patients call the clinic frantically for their medication (including anti-convulsants, Metformin, benzodiazipines, etc) but nobody calls them back. The only way I found out was when I would see patients a month after I saw them last and they tell me "i never received my medications from last appointment so I had to go to the hospital" . This is a VERY frequent occurrence. Talking to the owners does no good . The pharmacy they were using cut them off because when patients did not get their calls returned from the clinic about their meds, they would call the pharmacy angry. Also, he was freaked out about the controlled subs missing
They refuse to lock up the medication. They leave all the medication in unlocked drawers. Even worse,I recently found all the medication on a table in the waiting room with patients walking around it. The controlled subs are sometimes stolen so when the patients come to pick up their medication, there is a record of the drugs being picked up at the pharmacy so they vanished here where I work. The clinic owner does not care and tells me they will fix it but they never do.
As the clinic owner also does the billing, I recently found out that she was submitting bills to insurance without my notes being done. They did not run this by me and I know this is insurance fraud. They would then pay me both for the notes I completed and the notes I did not and also keep their share. All of a sudden they forgot one of my paychecks and I guess because I didn't make a big deal about it, they did not pay me for 6+ months. Every time I tried to leave the clinic for non-payment they scared me by saying I would be abandoning my patients and tried to make me sign something saying I would be liable. After I finally exploded, they said they reviewed my notes and found over 200 notes that they had billed that were incomplete that they and I had been padi for. ALthough my new notes were complete, they would keep all the money from these complete notes until I completed the old notes. This sounds illegal to bill under my NPI without paying me. More than this, they keep the incomplete notes away from me so I cannot finish them and will not give me a key to finish them.
The contract states if I leave early I am on the hook for $300,000 which I do not have. Another doctor came and quit due to the conditions and they are now suing her. My board is telling me to "make sure my legal needs are met before I leave" but also that I need to get out ASAP. Any advice? Could they actually win a breach of contract lawsuit against me? The only thing they have against me is that I dissuaded a colleague from working there after she signed a contract (she left when she saw the conditions not really because of me) and that I would have to work in the no-compete radius to the clinic
I did not know this when I started working here but one of the clinic owner's sons, who lives with her, is a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer. The other son, who is involved in the clinic, did billing for a clinic that was shut down for insurance fraud. Her son was involved in the clinic as he did the billing, was brought up for Medicaid fraud charges but, unlike the others in the clinic, was not convicted. In short these are super shady people
The clinic I work at had one small pharmacy near them that recently closed. There is a hospital nearby that provides the same medical services and has a captive pharmacy. In order to be competitive/not go out of business, the clinic owner's son began offering a courier service to pick up the patients' medication and allow the patients to pick them up at the clinic instead of driving 1 hour to the nearest pharmacy. I often see patients just d/c from the hospital . The system was working well until around 2 months ago. Now the owner's son now doesn't pick up the patients' medication until 1 week or more (sometime 2-3 weeks) so the patient run out of their prescriptions. The patients call the clinic frantically for their medication (including anti-convulsants, Metformin, benzodiazipines, etc) but nobody calls them back. The only way I found out was when I would see patients a month after I saw them last and they tell me "i never received my medications from last appointment so I had to go to the hospital" . This is a VERY frequent occurrence. Talking to the owners does no good . The pharmacy they were using cut them off because when patients did not get their calls returned from the clinic about their meds, they would call the pharmacy angry. Also, he was freaked out about the controlled subs missing
They refuse to lock up the medication. They leave all the medication in unlocked drawers. Even worse,I recently found all the medication on a table in the waiting room with patients walking around it. The controlled subs are sometimes stolen so when the patients come to pick up their medication, there is a record of the drugs being picked up at the pharmacy so they vanished here where I work. The clinic owner does not care and tells me they will fix it but they never do.
As the clinic owner also does the billing, I recently found out that she was submitting bills to insurance without my notes being done. They did not run this by me and I know this is insurance fraud. They would then pay me both for the notes I completed and the notes I did not and also keep their share. All of a sudden they forgot one of my paychecks and I guess because I didn't make a big deal about it, they did not pay me for 6+ months. Every time I tried to leave the clinic for non-payment they scared me by saying I would be abandoning my patients and tried to make me sign something saying I would be liable. After I finally exploded, they said they reviewed my notes and found over 200 notes that they had billed that were incomplete that they and I had been padi for. ALthough my new notes were complete, they would keep all the money from these complete notes until I completed the old notes. This sounds illegal to bill under my NPI without paying me. More than this, they keep the incomplete notes away from me so I cannot finish them and will not give me a key to finish them.
The contract states if I leave early I am on the hook for $300,000 which I do not have. Another doctor came and quit due to the conditions and they are now suing her. My board is telling me to "make sure my legal needs are met before I leave" but also that I need to get out ASAP. Any advice? Could they actually win a breach of contract lawsuit against me? The only thing they have against me is that I dissuaded a colleague from working there after she signed a contract (she left when she saw the conditions not really because of me) and that I would have to work in the no-compete radius to the clinic
Last edited:
I was about to say copycat, but then realized I was a later born pupper!
