MDACC, Protons, Chinese Investment Thread

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TheWallnerus

TheWallnerus

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A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
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TheWallnerus said:
A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
Click to expand...
5q1uqn.jpg
 
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TheWallnerus said:
A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
Click to expand...
Finally, this is the kind of internet sleuthing/conspiracy theory I can get behind! XRT Panama Papers, here we come.
 
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TheWallnerus said:
A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
Click to expand...
Some quick additional Googling:

Searching for the NPI gets you this website.

That website lists John H. Styles as the authorized official and his title is Managing Partner.

Googling Mr Styles gets you this website.

Of note from that website:

"In November 2018, Mr. Styles successfully negotiated an exit for all non-MD Anderson partners in an asset sale to MD Anderson Cancer Center. In 2019, Mr. Styles along with other senior executives from MD Anderson founded Legion Healthcare Partners."

So I assume the reason there's no additional Medicare data is because they've been bought out, yes? We can speculate till we're blue in the face about who got what amount of money, but I doubt anyone is unhappy from that arrangement/deal.
 
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elementaryschooleconomics said:
Some quick additional Googling:

Searching for the NPI gets you this website.

That website lists John H. Styles as the authorized official and his title is Managing Partner.

Googling Mr Styles gets you this website.

Of note from that website:

"In November 2018, Mr. Styles successfully negotiated an exit for all non-MD Anderson partners in an asset sale to MD Anderson Cancer Center. In 2019, Mr. Styles along with other senior executives from MD Anderson founded Legion Healthcare Partners."

So I assume the reason there's no additional Medicare data is because they've been bought out, yes? We can speculate till we're blue in the face about who got what amount of money, but I doubt anyone is unhappy from that arrangement/deal.
Click to expand...
Also what was pretty neat is that Concord was a "nonprofit" corp on Bloomberg. They're not for profit like I'm not a tusked mammal.

Look at these honorable people below. All have made a very nice living from rad oncs who did residencies to learn how to give proton radiation to people with cancer. I guess that's good. The amount of people making good money from radiation therapy in America who are not rad oncs has got to be much greater than the number of rad oncs in America.

IJbi3cG.png
 
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TheWallnerus said:
A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
Click to expand...
Concord had doing some clinical stuff in Shanghai, too, with Anderson or Anderson-adjacent people.
 
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Wish someone with some followers would post this wallnernus post on Twitter

Something STINKS in Houston, and it ain’t the Astros!
 
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TheWallnerus said:
Also what was pretty neat is that Concord was a "nonprofit" corp on Bloomberg. They're not for profit like I'm not a tusked mammal.

Look at these honorable people below. All have made a very nice living from rad oncs who did residencies to learn how to give proton radiation to people with cancer. I guess that's good. The amount of people making good money from radiation therapy in America who are not rad oncs has got to be much greater than the number of rad oncs in America.
Click to expand...

Bolded for emphasis.

Rent seekers.
 
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jondunn said:
Wish someone with some followers would post this wallnernus post on Twitter

Something STINKS in Houston, and it ain’t the Astros!
Click to expand...
I want to be clear I'm casting negative aspersions on no one.

But I am pointing out some—associations—especially in light of the Chinese brouhahas at Moffitt etc (which I freely admit I do not fully "get"). Which may mean nothing. But it is true that a Chinese entity was part owner of MDACC proton center, and that a principal in the Chinese company helped establish a "non-profit" corporation in America which credentialed with Medicare to collect payment, and that entity was the second highest ($8.3m; only beaten by a single MD at ProVision in Knoxville at $8.5m) single-provider-or-entity collector of rad onc Medicare money in the country in 2018.

The negative I see is how much money is "flooding the system" that makes foreign companies and investment firms want to buy stakes in proton centers, centers which have not proven their clinical mettle by a long shot.
 
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TheWallnerus said:
I want to be clear I'm casting negative aspersions on no one.

But I am pointing out some—associations—especially in light of the Chinese brouhahas at Moffitt etc (which I freely admit I do not fully "get"). Which may mean nothing. But it is true that a Chinese entity was part owner of MDACC proton center, and that a principal in the Chinese company helped establish a "non-profit" corporation in America which credentialed with Medicare to collect payment, and that entity was the second highest ($8.3m; only beaten by a single MD at ProVision in Knoxville at $8.5m) single-provider-or-entity collector of rad onc Medicare money in the country in 2018.

The negative I see is how much money is "flooding the system" that makes foreign companies and investment firms want to buy stakes in proton centers, centers which have not proven their clinical mettle by a long shot.
Click to expand...

Plenty of negatives. We have a PPS-exempt institution (MDACC), which as we know allows it to bilk the American taxpayer out of lots of dollars. Said institution also generally does not accept a great deal of charity care, despite being affiliated with a major American university. Now we find out that some profits from this institution - profits generated from systematically overcharging the American taxpayer- have been funneling to a Chinese company. It would be morally questionable at best if the profits stayed in the United States. Discovery that some of those profits were being directed towards China of all countries makes it morally repugnant.
 
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I know of several planned proton centers that were supposed to be financed with EB5 money. This has been going on for years. There was a major fraud case involving one of these planned centers a few years ago.
 
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TheWallnerus said:
A lot of people on this board have some inside MDACC insight. So I have a question.

In 2012 a Chinese company, Concord Medical, obtained a 20% stake in the MDACC proton center.

In the first post of this thread, it's pointed out that PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained $8.4m in payments for proton therapy from the US Govt in 2018. If you trace this company you find... a Jigang Sun "Adam" of OceanPine Capital is the manager of PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD (which has its mailing address as the MDACC Proton Center)...

Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP - Company Profile and News

Company profile page for Proton Therapy Center-Houston Ltd LLP including stock price, company news, executives, board members, and contact information
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Adam Sun - Oceanpine Capital

Mr. Adam Sun is the managing partner of Oceanpine Capital, as well as the managing partner of Oceanpine Healthcare Fund, a dedicated healthcare-focused RMB fund.
www.oceanpine.com www.oceanpine.com

Its NPI is 1760462709. They charged Medicare $41m in 2018 but only got paid $8.3m.

Of note, now this company has no NPI and is not listed in any further Medicare data from 2019 onwards.

I have so many questions! Like how does MDACC and Concord "split the profit" in that proton center. Is is 80/20? Let's be totally irresponsible and sensationalistic and assume they do. First, the $41m in charges is telling. MDACC is charging about 4x Medicare rates for protons. We can assume this is what they charge insurances and let's assume they get 3x Medicare from insurance. Let's assume that only 1/5 of their business is Medicare. A little back-of-envelope calcs can then tell us that the MDACC is pulling in $150m-$200m annually. And as I hear tell that's for only about 800 patients annually. This would average $250K per patient in reimbursement, across all patients, at the MDACC proton center.
Click to expand...
Why do you assume MDACC payer mix is only 20% Medicare?

This is my own ignorance, but as a PPS exempt place, can’t they bill whatever they want for services, incentivizing them to want to see Medicare patients? Or is that only for inpatient care?
 
maxxor said:
Why do you assume MDACC payer mix is only 20% Medicare?

This is my own ignorance, but as a PPS exempt place, can’t they bill whatever they want for services, incentivizing them to want to see Medicare patients? Or is that only for inpatient care?
Click to expand...
All it would take is for an MDACC resident reading this post to see what percent of today's on-treats are pure straight Medicare. And return here to anonymously post that percent. :)

I'm sticking with the 20% guess, though it could be wrong. (Most proton proformas usually go with a 40% Medicare mix; I have it on a somewhat reliable basis that the NY Proton Center has a ~20% Medicare payor mix.) The % difference MDACC can see from the PPS upcharge can be dwarfed by the multiples that some private insurances pay places like MDACC. But the nice thing about Medicare is: it always pays for protons. Whereas private insurance sometimes balks. A typical prostate will net $50K from Medicare, and with the PPS upcharge it can get to $75-100K. However at UPenn e.g. due to price transparency we know that sometimes they can get $500K plus on a prostate from private insurance.

The PROTON THERAPY CENTER HOUSTON LTD obtained "only" ~$8m in payment from Medicare in 2018; this would include their PPS upcharge I would think. Yet in 2019 they obtained another loan for $159M. (Maybe not a loan, just an outlay.) Ergo, they must be making a lot of money from non-Medicare patients or else no lender would give them $159M (or they wouldn't outlay $159M). The $159M amount gives one a reasonable idea of their annual revenue too. It could/should be in the $100-300M range on this basis.

Another way of thinking about the $8.3M Medicare payment in 2018 was that might account for only 50-200 ($160K to $40K per Medicare patient) Medicare patients even with a PPS upcharge, and we know MDACC proton center sees ~800 patients a year as of 2018. In other words we are back at a probable ~20% Medicare payor mix at the MDACC proton center. They could be devouring all the best private insurance patients from Texas, and the nation.
 
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maxxor said:
Why do you assume MDACC payer mix is only 20% Medicare?

This is my own ignorance, but as a PPS exempt place, can’t they bill whatever they want for services, incentivizing them to want to see Medicare patients? Or is that only for inpatient care?
Click to expand...
I don’t think the Medicare rates are the super jacked up high ones?
 
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@evilbooyaa This should split off into a separate thread. It’s probably worth more digging. Eating Popcorn GiF !!
 
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maxxor said:
Why do you assume MDACC payer mix is only 20% Medicare?

This is my own ignorance, but as a PPS exempt place, can’t they bill whatever they want for services, incentivizing them to want to see Medicare patients? Or is that only for inpatient care?
Click to expand...
That would incentivize them to see less Medicare as they could then see more well paid private insurance patients with higher negotiated rates.

Some places don't see much if any medicaid (which is even more ridiculous when you consider they are getting paid extra on Medicare pts with the PPS exempt status) and some complain even Medicare rates are kinda low (generally they in fact are compared to commercial rates)
 
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medgator said:
That would incentivize them to see less Medicare as they could then see more well paid private insurance patients with higher negotiated rates.

Some places don't see much if any medicaid (which is even more ridiculous when you consider they are getting paid extra on Medicare pts with the PPS exempt status) and some complain even Medicare rates are kinda low (generally they in fact are compared to commercial rates)
Click to expand...
all true
 
maxxor said:
How much higher relative to standard CMS PFS rates are the PPS exempt places collecting from Medicare?

I thought they got to keep the “usual and customary” status.
Click to expand...
AFAIK PPS doesn't provide >2x Medicare. It's an extra ~$500m a year to 11 hospitals, and that number includes many non-RT things. That's less than $50m per year per hospital (chickenfeed, relatively). Whereas private insurance can provide 5-10x Medicare rates. PPS bothers me. But price transparency has REALLY bothered me.

h27Nvyj.png
 
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elementaryschooleconomics said:
Definitely. It's hard to watch each institution act in their own best interest to the detriment of the specialty.
Click to expand...

...and the icing is when the institution charging rates higher than everyone else lectures about cost or fractions.
 
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BobbyHeenan said:
...and the icing is when the institution charging rates higher than everyone else lectures about cost or fractions.
Click to expand...
Not defending them. But think about what it was like to be Bernie Madoff’s son back in Bernie’s heyday. He was a huge philanthropist. Supported Jewish organizations throughout the city. He seemed like the nicest man ever. Everyone adored him. The children could just have no awareness of what the dad was up to.

So sometimes I think we all have to remember that those doing the lecturing are usually just employed physicians and sitting in their nice offices and their bosses tell them “We don’t worry about money, only patient care.” And that makes you feel good, and you don’t have to dig any deeper. Just like Bernie used to tell his kids. “We don’t worry about profit… we just do right by our investors.” And the kids didn’t dig any deeper.

But like Ted Lasso, quoting Walt Whitman, said:
Be curious.
 
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TheWallnerus said:
Not defending them. But think about what it was like to be Bernie Madoff’s son back in Bernie’s heyday. He was a huge philanthropist. Supported Jewish organizations throughout the city. He seemed like the nicest man ever. Everyone adored him. The children could just have no awareness of what the dad was up to.

So sometimes I think we all have to remember that those doing the lecturing are usually just employed physicians and sitting in their nice offices and their bosses tell them “We don’t worry about money, only patient care.” And that makes you feel good, and you don’t have to dig any deeper. Just like Bernie used to tell his kids. “We don’t worry about profit… we just do right by our investors.” And the kids didn’t dig any deeper.

But like Ted Lasso, quoting Walt Whitman, said:
Be curious.
Click to expand...
I'm not buying your excuses; these "employed physicians" know the score-ignorance is not an excuse.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

-Sinclair Lewis
 
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BobbyHeenan said:
...and the icing is when the institution charging rates higher than everyone else lectures about cost or fractions.
Click to expand...
Reaching back to HS English: “the lady doth prostest too much, methinks.” (Ben smith loves quoting the bard.)
 
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I'm enjoying this. Other fun and publicly available information:

Going back to Concord Medical Group, they're traded on the NYSE under the symbol CCM.

On Yahoo Finance you can find a list of key executives.

On that list is Dr. Matthew D. Callister who is listed as CMO.

If you Google Callister you find this website. "Dr. Callister has been an Adjunct Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the UT-MD Anderson Cancer Center from 2011 to present".

I think I'm doing this whole doctor thing wrong. All these folks in academic leadership positions scoring sweet deals with China. I have zero deals with China. How do I fix that? Is there someone I can email? Is this why people try to stay in academia?
 
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I wonder what kind of money Concord is bringing in with private patients getting protons in China? Used to be a 2 tier system there with minimal public coverage of health care. I don't know if this is changed. Wondering if proton therapy is the de-facto standard of care for affluent Chinese men with prostate cancer?
 
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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world mdacc was here to help
 
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I don’t always agree with everything that is posted on SDN, but this is GOLD, JERRY, GOLD

we live in an era of people digging deeper to the truth. This needs attention
 
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clearly twitter needs this. time to light the Bat Signal (aka the Simul Signal) -- and tag some local Houston newsgroup that likes taking shots at MDACC corruption (eg Houston Chronicle)
 
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I think this is too spicy for Simul to touch with a ten foot pole in terms of posting on twitter. would love for him to post it.
 
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I feel like this is more Jordan Johnson's cup of tea...
 
communitydoc13 said:
I wonder what kind of money Concord is bringing in with private patients getting protons in China? Used to be a 2 tier system there with minimal public coverage of health care. I don't know if this is changed. Wondering if proton therapy is the de-facto standard of care for affluent Chinese men with prostate cancer?
Click to expand...
From a 2016 article:

u9vFQ0o.png


This popped up in a search too. If you are building a proton center this looks like the firm to use:

Hefei Particle Therapy Medical Center

Considering customs, regulations, and rising cancer rates, we helped our client provide the community with world class cancer treatment.
www.stantec.com www.stantec.com
 
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what would steve frank say?
 
If mdacc gets their way, we will all be out of a job because our centers can no longer provide SOC and cannot afford protons. Maybe the chinese and frank were and are onto something folks!
Let’s just hope they are wrong or many many more people are joining the breadline. I will say seeing some of these ole timers in the lines will make my day, then i will remember we are in the same queue and what is for dinner. Very sad stuff. Insert GOB “ive made a huge mistake meme”
 
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thecarbonionangle said:
If mdacc gets their way, we will all be out of a job because our centers can no longer provide SOC and cannot afford protons. Maybe the chinese and frank were and are onto something folks!
Let’s just hope they are wrong or many many more people are joining the breadline. I will say seeing some of these ole timers in the lines will make my day, then i will remember we are in the same queue and what is for dinner. Very sad stuff. Insert GOB “ive made a huge mistake meme”
Click to expand...


images


old old old men DONE
 
Ha!

I’m learning as much as you are. Should I put thread on Twitter? Reasonable ask. I’ll think about it. Lots of innuendo and circumstantial stuff - that may well be true - but I think you are laying out the facts and I think there is value in the discussion and you’re right - this is one of the few safe spaces left.

I would say that I don’t care that it’s China as much as some others. My issue is that there is just so much money involved that things like “value based care” that people like me deeply care about get tossed aside because of all the money involved.

Anyway, keep digging!
 
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RealSimulD said:
Ha!

I’m learning as much as you are. Should I put thread on Twitter? Reasonable ask. I’ll think about it. Lots of innuendo and circumstantial stuff - that may well be true - but I think you are laying out the facts and I think there is value in the discussion and you’re right - this is one of the few safe spaces left.

I would say that I don’t care that it’s China as much as some others. My issue is that there is just so much money involved that things like “value based care” that people like me deeply care about get tossed aside because of all the money involved.

Anyway, keep digging!
Click to expand...
What’s it going to take for these guys to post their prices? Is that mdacc apm advisor involved in protons?
 
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RealSimulD said:
Ha!

I’m learning as much as you are. Should I put thread on Twitter? Reasonable ask. I’ll think about it. Lots of innuendo and circumstantial stuff - that may well be true - but I think you are laying out the facts and I think there is value in the discussion and you’re right - this is one of the few safe spaces left.

I would say that I don’t care that it’s China as much as some others. My issue is that there is just so much money involved that things like “value based care” that people like me deeply care about get tossed aside because of all the money involved.

Anyway, keep digging!
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I doubt it's worth going down the Twitter road at this point. Anything truly scandalous won't warrant comment by relevant parties because lawyers have already made them sign documents promising not to speak about it, or they're smart enough to know to keep their mouth shut.

I mostly find it interesting because these are the places that are preaching at us about costs and financial toxicity. I just mentally add it to the list of glass houses filled with stones, like when the CMO of Sloan had to resign after failing to disclose financial conflicts of interest, or when the CEO of Moffitt was fired for the China recruitment scandal thing, or when Wally Curran left academia to become CMO of 21C after GenesisCare took over, or when we started to see how much large academic centers were charging for their services...the list goes on.
 
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Maybe I should rename this to the Wallnerus and ElementarySchoolEconomics 'Eating Popcorn Gif' thread for all the scandals affecting Rad Onc and Oncology in general in one super thread...
 
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any questions?!

 
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elementaryschooleconomics said:
I doubt it's worth going down the Twitter road at this point. Anything truly scandalous won't warrant comment by relevant parties because lawyers have already made them sign documents promising not to speak about it, or they're smart enough to know to keep their mouth shut.

I mostly find it interesting because these are the places that are preaching at us about costs and financial toxicity. I just mentally add it to the list of glass houses filled with stones, like when the CMO of Sloan had to resign after failing to disclose financial conflicts of interest, or when the CEO of Moffitt was fired for the China recruitment scandal thing, or when Wally Curran left academia to become CMO of 21C after GenesisCare took over, or when we started to see how much large academic centers were charging for their services...the list goes on.
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Some of the Chinese linked scandals involved docs/scientists receiving large payments, deposited into bank accounts in China, which they did not report to the irs.
 
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