Jury Convicts Four Doctors in Forest Park Med Center Fraud Trial
A Dallas federal jury this week convicted seven defendants, including four doctors, for their alleged roles in a multi-million dollar bribery and kickback arrangement. The jury deliberated for four days following a seven-week trial. According to the Dallas Morning News,
Some of those convicted were not typical defendants in healthcare prosecutions. They included Dr. Douglas Won and Dr. Michael Rimlawi, who both pioneered innovative surgical techniques that cut the risk of infection and sped up recovery.
“I’m in disbelief,” Rimlawi told his supporters after the verdict, shock registering on his face. “I thought we had a good system, a fair system.”
All seven defendants who were convicted were found guilty of one of the more serious charges in the indictment — conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare bribes and kickbacks.
Dr. Rimlawi “vehemently denied” that the payments that he received were kickbacks.
Rimlawi is the director and founder of the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute, and had operating privileges at the now bankrupt hospital. Rimlawi made the news when he and co-defendant Doug Won recruited Dr. Christopher Duntsch, who was convicted for aggravated assault related to his patient outcomes and made famous in Matt Goodman’s piece coining him Dr. Death. Duntsch performed just one surgery with MISI before he was fired, after Rimlawi said he flew to Las Vegas right after the operation and didn’t secure a call physician.
Rimlawi was questioned by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau, whois known for defending celebrities such as Mike Tyson in a rape case, Bill Cosby’s retrial for sexual assault, and most famously, the 2005 molestation trial of Michael Jackson, where Jackson was acquitted of all 14 counts.
Mesereau worked to establish that Rimlawi operated within the law to the best of his knowledge, consulting Forest Park’s legal counsel on his activities centered around marketing arrangements and Department of Labor patients.
Prosecutor Katherine Pfeifle began her cross-examination with a look into fraudulent DOL billing, which Rimlawi said he had no knowledge about. When the prosecutor brought up conflicting testimony of his office staff, he deflected. “She was very scared of you guys. She’s petrified – she doesn’t know what you can do to her.”
More than ten of the original defendants including one of the hospital’s founders, anesthesiologist Richard Toussaint, have pleaded guilty. Early in the trial, the Morning News detailed how Andrea Smith, one of the hospital’s “surgery trackers” sent monthly color-coded spreadsheets to the doctors so they could prepare invoices to be paid by Forest Park.
Doctors often fought over who brought which patients to Forest Park for surgeries, Smith told jurors. Others complained of being “shorted.” Smith said she was caught in the middle and tasked with trying to sort it all out.
D Magazine published a feature article on the eve of trial that detailed the allegations.
Will Maddox of D CEO Healthcare Daily reports that the long-awaited trial of the remaining 10 defendants began today. It’s expected to last two months. The feds tracked $200 million to the scheme, about $40 million of which were kickbacks. These were disguised as marketing arrangements in some cases. In others, they came in the form of outright cash payments. All of those facing trial have pleaded not guilty. Two of the doctors, Dr. Doug Won and Michael Rimlawi, were the men who first recruited the neurosurgeon Dr. Christopher Duntsch to town, who we coined Dr. Death and later became the first physician in American history to be convicted for aggravated assault related to his patient outcomes.
They’re accused of accepting payments in return for performing surgeries at Forest Park. Won’s attorney told The Dallas Morning News that he never received payments to steer patients to Forest Park facilities—he practiced there because of the high quality of its surgical suites and materials.
According to the Morning News, the Forest Park trial is one of the largest bribery and kickback prosecutions in the nation and is considered a test case for future prosecutions. “It was being closely watched by many in the healthcare industry. That’s because the government is trying to make a bribery and kickback case involving not federal healthcare dollars, but private insurance.”
None of the defendants who were convicted has yet to be sentenced.
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