John Shocked
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 Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:00 pm Post subject: Intentional Harm as Dentists profiteer in California |
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A huge news story which is being suppressed by bribed out crooks in the
US Press nationwide, is the Ceres, CA case of the dental practice of Teo
and Pang, who were responsible for a criminal campaign of unnecessary
fillings, crowns and root canals, in a wild determination to profiteer by
causing pain and destruction teeth of unsuspecting patients, which even
involved operating on completely healthy teeth.
This story began in 2003, with arrests of 20 dentists for drilling
healthy teeth and performing fillings, root canals and crowns on them.
Initially, the case was led by the local Police, and they were intent on
treating this case as it should be treated: a massive crime, with
national implications. However, the case, because it involved dentistry,
fell into the lap of the California Dental Board/Bureau. The crooks at
the California Dental Board/Bureau dragged their feet on the case and
while this obstruction of justice persisted over several years, most of the
dentist criminals involved were allowed to plead to lesser charges, served
no prison time and did not even lose their dentist licences.
Normally, co-conspirators are allowed to plead guilty only in return for
testimony against a bigger fish. In this case, the bigger fish were
dentist Kyon Maung Teo, who owned this Hatch Dental practice, and his
wife Kin Thor Pang who was the Hatch Dental office manager. These two
people orchestrated the crimes which were committed at the Hatch Dental
clinics.
However, a month ago, Teo and Pang were allowed to plead guilty and
receive only 1 year in prison each. This is a disgrace to law and order
and shows the danger to the public of an unregulated fee-for-service
medical system. These patients were victims of Intentional Harm from
profiteering dentists who performed invasive procedures on them strictly
in order to collect money for those fee-for-service procedures.
Teo should have received at least 15 years in prison for his role
committing and orchestrating these crimes.
Other dentists who touched and harmed their patients intentionally
should have received 2-10 years in prison.
Apparently, at a point earlier in the process, a California judge was asked
by the California Attorney General's office to revoke the licence
of Pang but he refused, claiming that the
California Dental Board/Bureau had not finished their investigation.
That judge should be impeached and removed from office.
With the magnitude of the danger to the public Teo represents, the
judge should have revoked or at least suspended the licence pending
the obstruction of justice which the California Dental Board/Bureau
presented.
Some states have a surplus of dentists, especially states which have
dental schools. The economics dictate that when there is a surplus of
suppliers, there should be a reduction of prices and increased
availability of their product, which would be good for patients.
However, the consumers of medicine are lay people and thus lack
information to judge what services they need truly. Thus, the prices of
dentistry in those surplus states have remained fixed essentially and thus
there is only one other way for dentists who have a shortage of truly
sick patients to support themselves: Generate Work. This means
Intentional Harm of healthy patients by the medical practitioner
for the money.
Usually, dentists generate work by actions such as giving their patient
a Bad Bite or a leaky cement in a crown. A Bad Bite causes some of the
victim's teeth to grind against each other and destroy their enamel protections,
and causes other teeth which are not touching to move out of their socket
toward their opposing bite-mate.
The actions of Teo and Pang and these 20 arrested dentists was way
out of bounds of the known norms of prosecutable criminality in the
dentistry industry.
This is a widespread problem in the administration of medicine in the US.
However, the democratic process in the US is hampered from reacting to
these crimes by widespread corruption in the US News Media.
Pharmaceutical and Medical advertising in the US news media, TV,
radio and print, is preventing the crooks who run those media businesses
from putting this story on Page One on newspapers across the US.
Any Google search (e.g. "teo pang dentist") will reveal that this story was
covered periodically by only one newspaper, the local Modesto Bee,
which was 5 miles from the scene of the crime.
Local newspapers have no choice but to cover such a massive arrest
of 20 'professionals' especially where criminal charges are brought
by the state California Attorney General office. Normally a case
involving crimes of this magnitude would be picked up, Page One, by other
newspapers nationwide and news services like the Associated Press and Reuters.
However, that never happens with cases of crimes committed in the
medical and pharmaceutical industries.
Most of these crooked newspapers feed the public regularly the big lie that medical
practitioners are the victims of excessive litigiousness and that they are victims
of fraudulent medical malpractice civil suits. However, respected studies such
as those performed by Harvard University in New York hospitals that a miniscule
proportion of the victims of medical malpractice even recognize that they have been a
victim. And that furthermore, only a miniscule proportion of those victims
actually reach the point of filing a medical malpractice suit.
Any attack on this national medical crisis must include an attack on the
Payola bribery relationships which exist between the news media and their
advertisers. Any personnel at an advertiser or their advertising agency which
demands any undisclosed editorial result from their purchase of advertising,
must go to prison. Any advertising sales personnel at a news media entity
offering undisclosed editorial considerations in return for the purchase of
advertising, must go to prison. If such Payola laws were properly written today,
this would lead to many pharmaceutical company and hospital/clinic officers and
media officers being prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. That is just
what they deserve for this betrayal of the public trust.
Any law in this area which involves the First Amendment must include in
it a clause which forbids the US Supreme Court from interfering with that
law. The alliance between the crooks at the US Supreme Court and the News
media is strong, they have reasons to protect each other, and US
Supreme Court opposition to any such law should be anticipated. The fact
is that there is nothing in the US Constitution which empowers the US
Supreme Court to strike down any Federal Law passed by Congress and
signed by the US President. This is a fiction perpetrated by the crooks
in the US Press. In return, the Court will fight this law with every
power real or fictionalized, at their disposal.
Just to be clear: "medical malpractice" normally involves mistakes by
medical practitioners, usually driven by laziness, or haste, or some sort
of negligence. Unintentional Harm to the patient. The crisis hitting
citizens in the US is the result of Intentional acts by medical
practitioners. That puts these acts decidedly in the Criminal Courts
(prison), rather than solely the Civil Courts (money).
All workers at the California Dental Board/Bureau involved in this case
should be Fired and replaced with members perhaps of the law enforcement
community. In addition, no state medical regulatory Board/Bureau should
have as its members, medical practitioners who are working currently in
the medical industry. Medical Professors and Research Laboratory workers
should be used as the primary sources of technical information by those
charged with protecting the public from medical crimes.
John
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http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=787
Attorney General Charges Central Valley Dentist and 20 Others in $4.5 Million Medi-
Cal Fraud Scheme
Dentists Bilked System; Performed Unnecessary Dental Work on Unsuspecting Patients
(SACRAMENTO) - Attorney General Bill Lockyer today filed criminal complaints
against 20 dentists throughout the state, charging them with defrauding the state
Medi-Cal System of $4.5 million, health benefits and workers' compensation fraud,
conspiracy, grand theft, child abuse, elder abuse, assault and intentional
infliction of great bodily injury.
"These dentists put at risk the health and well-being of hundreds of children and
adults by performing slipshod dental services that were unnecessary, ignoring
health problems that needed tending, and even skimping on appropriate amounts of
anesthesia before submitting patients to painful procedures," Lockyer said. "This
office will continue to aggressively prosecute those who rip off the Medi-Cal
system that more than 6 million poor and elderly Californians depend on for vital
health care."
Filed in Stanislaus County Superior Court, the complaint charges Modesto dentist
Kyon Maung Teo, who owns Hatch Dental clinics in Ceres, Stockton and Modesto, with
being the mastermind of a scam involving dentists from throughout the state. The
complaint alleges Teo, 42, placed advertisements on the back of missing-children
flyers and in PennySaver and DollarSaver publications. The advertisements offered
gifts or rebates to Medi-Cal beneficiaries and "new patients" who sought services
at Hatch Dental.
The investigation by the Attorney General's Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder
Abuse (BMFEA), assisted by the California Department of Health Services (DHS)
showed Teo recruited 19 other dentists, who were paid about 25 percent of the
insurance proceeds received by Hatch Dental for the work they performed. The
kickbacks provided an incentive to perform unnecessary dental procedures of poor
quality, including unnecessary filings and even unnecessary root canal procedures.
It was not uncommon for a patient to walk out of Hatch Dental with 20 or more
unnecessary fillings. To help increase billings, dental assistants also were
instructed to perform procedures such as cementing crowns, which lawfully can only
be performed by licensed dentists.
Co-defendant Kin Thor Pang, Teo's wife, was the office manager for all three Hatch
Dental clinics. The complaint alleges Pang, 33, trained office staff to complete
false dental claims, including changing dates of service or billing Medi-Cal and
private insurance companies for "emergency" office visits if the patients were
ineligible for routine coverage at the time of service.
The Hatch clinic staffs also were trained to fabricate periodontal charts and
prepare Treatment Authorization Requests (TARs) to obtain Medi-Cal reimbursement
for services based on the fabricated charts. Claims also were submitted for visits
that never occurred and for non-existent procedures purportedly performed during
the fabricated office visits. Insurance billing clerks were docked a dollar from
their paycheck for each "mistake" they made.
As part of the conspiracy to defraud the Medi-Cal system, the dentists committed
acts injurious to public health, placing the patients at risk of pain, infection,
loss of teeth and great bodily injury, including: reusing dental instruments
without sterilizing them, developing treatment plans that called for unnecessary
dental surgeries such as root canals and fillings, performing dental surgeries
without considering the patient's medical history, providing numerous shallow
fillings in lieu of comprehensive treatment to patients in need of such treatment,
issuing prescriptions for Schedule III narcotics without documenting the source and
type of pain, forcibly restraining children during dental operations, performing
extensive dental treatment on minors without fully disclosing the extent of the
treatment to the minor's parent or guardian and performing dental surgeries without
adequate anesthesia.
As the result of a separate investigation conducted by the California Department of
Insurance, Teo and Pang also are charged with committing Workers' Compensation
premium fraud by grossly understating the salaries of Hatch employees. The under-
reporting resulted in a loss of $948.19 to Superior National Insurance Company, and
$9,154 to Everest National Insurance Company.
Other dentists named as defendants in the complaint are:
Steve Sangmoon Ahn, 41, of Fullerton
Hoon Young Chang, 34, of Anaheim Hills
Wen Hsiang Chou, 46, of Alhambra
Anthony Halili Galvan, 42, of Dublin
Eduardo Sabater Gerodias, 36, of Modesto
Shahryar Baradaran Hashemi, 37, of Reseda
Keith Yoshikuzu Komaki, 58, of Anaheim
Ricky Hung-Tak Lam, 35, of Antioch
Rahim Mesbah, 49, of Modesto
Duc Sy Nguyen, 33, of Milpitas
Sang-Hyuk "Sean" Park, 35, of Merced
Luis Alexandrino Pinto, 42, of Irvine
Rodolfo Poscablo Ravanera, 57, of Oakland
Behnam Rostami, 48, of Stockton
Williams Defreitas Saraiva, 60, of Irvine
Seyed Mohamed Tarifard, 58, of Stockton
Tri Duy Vu, 32, of Sunnyvale
Shiyu Wang,44 of Alameda
Faruk Cenap Yetek, 43, of Pleasant Hill
Patients who believe they have been victimized by the Hatch Dental clinic dentists
are urged to contact the Attorney General's Medi-Cal Fraud Hotline number at
1-800-722-0432.
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http://www.modbee.com/local/story/435165.html
Ceres dentist, wife sentenced to year in jail for Medi-Cal fraud
Booking photo of dental scam suspect Kyon Teo. AP Ceres man, wife sentenced to jail
and must pay back $3M for probe and repairs
By SUSAN HERENDEEN sherendeen@modbee.com
last updated: September 19, 2008 03:15:21 AM
A Ceres dentist and his wife were sentenced to one year in jail Thursday, four
years after the California attorney general's office accused them of engaging in a
conspiracy to defraud Medi-Cal of $4.5 million.
In addition to pleading no contest to one count of fraud, Kyon Maung Teo and his
wife and office manager, Kin Thor Pang, agreed to repay $3 million. Half of the
money will cover the cost of the investigation and any corrective dental work
former patients require.
A 44-count complaint filed in September 2004 outlined 104 acts that allegedly were
part of a conspiracy among Teo and his employees at Hatch Dental offices in Ceres,
Modesto and Stockton from November 1999 to December 2003.
Teo, Pang and 19 others were accused of performing unnecessary procedures on
healthy teeth and submitting fraudulent claims for procedures that were not
completed.
Attorneys for Teo and Pang hammered out a deal with prosecutors on June 26 after a
start-and-stop preliminary hearing stretched into its third year. The deal called
for repayment of $3 million before sentencing.
Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Steffen noted his displeasure.
"I fully expect that money to be paid," Steffen said as he extended the payment
date to Oct. 24.
Defense attorneys promised the money would be raised from the sale of properties,
blaming the delay on the troubled real estate market. Teo, 46, and Pang, 37, own a
home in Modesto, two homes in San Francisco and 10 properties in San Mateo County,
according to court records.
The case began with a complaint to the Ceres Police Department, by a patient who
said she asked to have her teeth cleaned April 29, 2002, but got 22 fillings
instead.
In legal papers, prosecutors argued that dentists who worked for Teo were
encouraged to perform procedures quickly, with little attention to quality, because
they were paid 25 percent of the insurance proceeds.
Prosecutors also contend Pang trained billing clerks to falsify records.
Investigators reviewed 300 patient files and X-rays that were confiscated during
raids of Teo's three dental offices.
As the case dragged on, 10 dentists who worked with Teo pleaded no contest to
reduced charges, such as battery or conspiracy to submit fraudulent claims. The
attorney general's office dismissed charges against one dentist. Charges against
eight others remain.
As part of the plea agreement, Teo and Pang must provide information about the
other dentists' roles in the conspiracy and testify against them in criminal
proceedings.
Teo continues to perform dental work at an office on Hatch Road in Ceres, but the
Dental Board of California has instituted hearings aimed at revoking his license.
Because administrative hearings are under way, Steffen declined a prosecutor's
request to suspend Teo's license.
The judge sentenced Teo to one year in jail but said he could be sent to prison for
five years if he gets in trouble during five years of supervised probation. The
judge sentenced Pang to 360 days in jail and three years of informal probation.
Teo and Pang must turn themselves in at the jail Dec. 15, unless the Sheriff's
Department lets them do their time on a home detention program. Pang, who is
pregnant, is expected to deliver the couple's baby before they begin serving time.
Money seemed to be the biggest concern for the judge, who reminded Teo that the
deal depends on a $3 million payment. Teo said he understood.
"I am more than disappointed that no payments have been made," Steffen said.
Bee staff writer Susan Herendeen can be reached at sherendeen@modbee.com or
578-2338.
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