Take time to check out doctors on medical board’s website

Two local radiologists who paid $2 million in 2009 for submitting false claims to Medicare are now fighting the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners over whether they should have reported that information to state medical officials.

Naturally, Drs. William Boren and Luke Cesaretti, owners of West Valley Imaging in Las Vegas and Henderson, admit no wrongdoing. Old news, right?

However, between the time the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started investigating the two radiologists in 2004 and when a settlement was reached in 2009, the two doctors didn’t disclose this to the medical board.

Doctors are asked during the licensing and relicensing process about government entities that may be "investigating and/or charging" a doctor with violating the law, either criminally or civilly. Boren and Cesaretti renewed their licenses in 2005, 2007 and 2009 and didn’t disclose the federal action.

The doctors’ Los Angeles attorney Patric Hooper is adamant West Valley Imaging at 3025 S. Rainbow Blvd. was audited by federal officials and an audit doesn’t have to be reported.

Hooper insisted this has all been misunderstood. "There was never a case filed; it was always an administrative audit. Medicare audits are not reportable, and we’re going to fight this one."

Hooper said the doctors paid to settle because otherwise they might have been kicked off of Medicare. He blamed the office administration for the errors totaling $2 million between 1998 and 2003. His defense hinges on the definition of the word "investigation."

The medical board’s executive director, Douglas Cooper, has a different take: "The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, did an investigation for Medicare fraud. An audit is usually only one factor in an investigation of the type the DHHS, OIG conducted."

The two doctors each face five-count complaints alleging they brought the medical profession into disrepute by their efforts to deceive by not reporting the investigation and results.

Boren has three malpractice cases his insurance companies paid to settle. Insurance companies can settle in order to avoid expensive litigation, so payments don’t always indicate malpractice.

In 2004, there was a settlement of $1 million for the alleged laceration of a pulmonary artery during a biopsy in 2001. In 2006, there was a settlement of $150,000 for alleged misinterpretation of a mammogram film, which delayed treatment of a woman’s breast cancer. In 2007, there was a settlement of $225,000 in another breast cancer case based on allegations that Boren didn’t detect a cancerous mass.

This is public record on the medical board’s website at http://www.medboard.nv.gov/. Or you can call 775-688-2559 and ask.

In an unrelated case, Dr. James Beecham of Las Vegas was one of 11 doctors disciplined by the board in December, but it was overshadowed by the public reprimand against Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray for incomplete records on his license application.

Beecham, a pathologist, surrendered his license to practice medicine in Nevada pending formal disciplinary action. That’s relatively rare and piqued my interest. He is being investigated by the board for one count of malpractice.

Beecham is accused of not putting the right paperwork with the correct slide when he was reading two women’s pathology slides in 2008.

As a result, a 30-year-old woman had a hysterectomy for no reason because he found her biopsy to be malignant. The truth was, the other woman had the malignancy.

That’s a pretty major whoops.

Insurance companies have paid patients $200,000, $125,000 and $90,000 on his behalf when people have alleged malpractice. The payments didn’t appear to involve the woman who had the unnecessary hysterectomy or the woman who thought she was home-free, but wasn’t.

Before writing this column, it never crossed my mind to check out radiologists and pathologists.

That’s going to change.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.