OHIP Fraud By Plastic Surgeons In Ontario Uncovered by Penciltrick.com
There has been a lot of controversy lately regarding government waste in the eHealth Scandal. According the the CBC, over 1 billion dollars was wasted through shady tactics and backdoor deals. But at Penciltrick we’ve uncovered a different kind of flagrant waste of public funds being performed not by consultants but by the very people we entrust to work the system and take care of our family’s health.
The next time you’re waiting 5+ hours in the emergency room you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the patients in front of you are using your tax dollars to pay for larger breasts, flatter stomachs and tighter asses. Really, is it any wonder our hospitals are so understaffed and in such poor shape?
During our observation of an ongoing hearing of a Toronto physician at The Collage of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario we were absolutely flabbergasted to hear the testimony of Doctor John Craig Fielding admitting that he charges OHIP for consultations regarding liposuction. That’s right. Not life saving procedures or even reconstructive surgeries but removing blubber from some fat ass. I for one am absolutely disgusted that I work every day and pay my taxes just so plastic surgeons like Dr. Fielding can take my hard earned money to suck fat out of someone’s abdomen, flanks and thighs.
In the hearing and under oath Dr. Fielding was asked if he charged the Ontario Health Insurance Plan for examining a patient for a liposuction procedure. After evading the question for a while he was asked to call his administrator and confirm how the patient was charged. His reply was:
“The initial consultation on January 26th was billed to the Ministry of Health.“
(cue scratching record sound)
OHIP Insurance Fraud With No Consequences
Hold on a minute. So a patient goes in and says she has fat legs and wants lipostuction. Dr. Fielding examines her and then conveniently uses our tax dollars to cover the consultation and pay for his cottage? How is that not clear and blatant insurance fraud? This is a man who teaches other doctors and works at St. Joseph Hospital . What exactly are these young doctors learning from this man? How to cheat OHIP? How to perform surgeries that are purely for cosmetic reasons using the public purse?
On their own site the Ontario government clearly states:
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care pays for a wide range of services, however, it does not pay for services that are not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery.
What else are these plastic surgeons billing to OHIP? How many of them are doing this every single day in this province?
So what was the result of this admission on November 3, 2009? Absolutely nothing! Dr. Fielding is not being investigated. (why should he when he is the lead witness for the very college that is supposed to be policing him). He has not been charged with defrauding our government and the public that is supporting him. He is still working at St. Joseph Hospital. Apparently they’re okay with having this “doctor” teaching their interns and ripping us all off by charging OHIP and lining his own pockets. Wouldn’t it be nice if your own insurance company was so agreeable if you stole your own car stereo and then claimed it from your plan?
Think About It The Next Time You Or Someone You Know Is In The Hospital
So this is all well and good but what does this mean for Ontario? It’s simple. It means that if you have to take an ambulance in this province it’s going to cost you a minimum of $45. But if you need to consult with Dr. John Craig Fielding of St. Joseph Hospital to palpate your gluteal fat, you won’t have to pay a penny. The rest of us dumb slobs working a job in Ontario will take care of it for you.
There are probably millions if not tens of millions of dollars and more being wasted on these unapproved cosmetic procedures by plastic surgeons with absolutely no consequences. The politicians don’t seem to care. The media don’t seem to give a crap and apparently St. Joseph Hospital and The College Of Physicians and Surgeons are happy to pay people like Dr. Fielding for services rendered and won’t do anything about it.
I had the misfortune of watching my mother in the hospital recently and pleading with the nurses and doctors to try and get her a new mattress because the one she was on was basically garbage and causing her more harm than good. They didn’t have any available.
How many of these consultations are being charged to OHIP by Plastic Surgeons and other medical professionals? How many breasts have the people of Ontario paid for? How many vaccines, beds and nurses could we have paid for if this money wasn’t being stolen from us? I don’t know. All that I can do is report what we’ve found. I can only hope that a politician or prominent reporter is willing to take it from here and actually make a difference to our healthcare system.
While we’re busy paying for unnecessary, irrelevant and expensive cosmetic procedures, our friends down south are actually acting more sensibly then us for a change and proposing a 5% “Botax” on cosmetic surgery.
The beauty of all this? If someone investigated and got back all this money, not only would it not cost the taxpayers and government anymore money, we would actually take back what was rightfully ours and start putting our healthcare system on a path of better efficiency and accountability. Never mind the money that was already stolen. How about stopping this theft moving forward as a start. That would make a huge difference to our budget immediately. Any takers?
And both the College and St. Joseph Hospital should be ashamed and embarrassed that they are allowing this man who has admitted to illegally charging OHIP for cosmetic procedures under oath to continually defraud the public.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Listen:
anyone can complain to the CPSO and they HAVE to act o it!
If this bugs you
COMPLAIN, make a formal complaint and they have to act
you can appeal to the Health Disciplines Bopard too, all free, and get the Star into the act
December 14th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
That’s nice in theory. But the CPSO is the same organization that is paying this guy to be on the stand. From what I saw when I sat in on the hearing, I don’t think it’s exactly an impartial organization. What was it the CBC said in their investigation of the e-Health thing? “Too much power in too few hands”.
That’s what bugs me about this. These guys are being paid by us to protect the public but they don’t seem to care and they don’t really “have to” do anything. They just do what they like because they’re not an official and accountable government organization. Self policing doesn’t work. These doctors are completely abusing our healthcare system. I do not want to pay for someone’s unnecessary liposuction while my parents get second rate treatment because our hospitals can’t afford new equipment or enough nurses.
This is absolutely disgusting. I don’t want to complain to the CPSO and have them brush it under the rug. I want our government to pull their reigns in and stop these plastic surgeons from stealing our tax dollars. If this guy can go on the stand and admit to OHIP fraud and nobody does anything, it’s clearly a much bigger problem than the CPSO can handle or they’d have done something already.
January 8th, 2010 at 3:35 am
If you book a doctor to discuss your problem, who does both cosmetic and non-cosmetic procedures (as defined by CPSO and board of health), then ohip covers it. Before the consultation the doctor and sometimes patient doesn’t know the catagorisation. Just like people who go in to get a doctors not for a ‘flu’ are under their own discretion whether they really need to see a doctor not, so are these people who book appoints for plastic surgery consults.
However, to say that ohip pays for ‘unnecessary liposuction’ is completely false. It doesn’t even pay for ‘necessary liposuction’. Liposuction procedures may be part of a necessary procedure, masectomy, or what have you, but that PORTION of the surgery is paid for by the patient. NOT by OHIP.
The real large scale loss of funds is closer related to the people who see the doctor every time they get a flu or a paranoia enduced shot of h1n1 and the like. Consider.
January 8th, 2010 at 4:11 am
First of all thank you for posting with a fake e-mail address forensics ass (not a typo). Makes you look very credible. Now let’s address your comment.
When a patient books a consultation, nobody can know what it’s for. That is true. But after the doctor sees her and she tells him that she wants medically unnecessary liposuction, he sure as hell knows why she was there on her way out. And it’s on her way out that OHIP is billed.
And I don’t think that it’s completely false to assume that OHIP pay’s for unnecessary procedures. The CBC recently reported on a doctor that was forced to give back $2.5 million dollars because he was billing for unnecessary procedures. Why? Because there is no accountability in the system. You have absolutely no way of knowing how many things are being paid for. If these Plastic surgeons send a patient for a blood test, does the lab ask why they are seeing the doctor and then make them pay? No they don’t. It also comes out of our pockets. There are likely hundreds of little things like that that add up to millions of wasted funds each year.
So thank you for posting your propaganda but please don’t assume that the readers of this blog are stupid enough to believe that a medically trained Plastic surgeon is too dumb to know when he should or shouldn’t bill OHIP. Or that it’s some kind of innocent mistake. That’s like going into a restaurant and not paying for the meal because you weren’t sure if you were going to order that steak or not on your way in. You go in. You order, the waiter then knows what you want and he gives you the bill. It’s really no more complicated than that. Even a doctor cold figure it out.
And while I may agree with you about the possible hypochondria in our society and media, please don’t try to put this on patients. As citizens our duty is to work, obey the law and pay our taxes. In return our government promises us healthcare. If a person wants to go see a doctor because they have a cough, it’s their right. If they choose to take an unnecessary vaccine because it makes them feel safer, it’s their right. They’ve done their duty and that is exactly what the system is for.
But it is illegal for a plastic surgeon in Toronto like Dr. Fielding to line his pockets with our tax dollars for a liposuction consultation and who knows what other procedures. The law is absolutely and unequivocally clear in that matter. The disturbing thing is that the College of Physicians and Surgeons did not take any action. They just sat around with their thumb up their ass while this was being admitted. It’s their job to protect us and our funding. If they are doing nothing, what does that say about the system as a whole? How safe are you really when the Doctors seem to be able to decide what to do and what not to do. Does it end with the money or does it apply to other areas? Who is watching the watchdog?