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According to that May 2012 suit, they were the collateral damage of a massive scheme to defraud insurers, involving Drobot, former owner of Pacific Hospital of Long Beach. Mark Sersansie might be forgiven for often looking over his shoulder. Williams, meanwhile, accused his bookkeeper of sabotage and embezzlement in a court declaration and said the books never were made right. Pilot Bob Garrison enjoyed a birds-eye view of the shenanigans, flying screws and doctors and cash. Northcutt recalls seeing one Spinal Solutions representative pull up to a doctors office in a gleaming white Rolls-Royce and hearing that the company ferried its goods by private plane. Its alleged that kickbacks were paid to surgeons who would then use the fake products in surgeries. Or in many of the other bags that Hwang inspected over two days of testimony. Roger Williams lured them with private plane rides, generous consulting contracts and even cash, interviews and records show. Hwang, now research and development director for U&I, flew from South Korea to Los Angeles to give two long, contentious days of deposition in the lead civil case. His doctor, he added, had been after him for years to quit work anyway. From at least 1997 through 2013, the scheme billed workers compensation insurers hundreds of millions of dollars for spinal surgeries on patients who had been referred by doctors and others who typically got illegal kickbacks of $15,000 per patient. He started Spinal Solutions in 1999 and launched a firm selling knee and hip implants three years later. A few years ago, Crowder stopped making the screws because Spinal Solutions was unwilling to pay a fair price, he said. Williams ability to connect with surgeons across the country meant that when counterfeit hardware slipped into the mix, the problem went national, according to one company insider. In February, the Department of Justice reported that Michael Drobot, a former Pacific Hospital executive, pleaded guilty to charges that he ran a long-running health care fraud scheme that involved tens of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks in exchange for referrals of thousands of patients who received spinal surgeries. A spokeswoman at the hospital had no comment. The DOJ said it has been doggedly pursuing the criminal threads in this case. In a statement, Dignity Health said that it has not seen evidence that any of the plaintiffs assertions apply to its St. Bernardine Medical Center. But neither has regrets. One busy spinal surgeon, Dr. Cully White of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, took breaks from his suburban mansion on Spinal Solutions plane trips to the snowy resort town of Vail, Colorado, and the sunny Mexican beach retreat of Cabo San Lucas. The screws, real or fake, all funneled into what lawsuits claim was a larger scheme to bilk Californias workers compensation system, an employer-funded program designed to help those injured on the job. But the agony didnt subside and she suffered painful complications as well, according to her lawsuit. Sforza birthed the Watchdog column for The Orange County Register in 2008, aiming to keep a critical (but good-humored) eye on governments and nonprofits, large and small. He didnt engrave those, he said, but instead photographed items he found at Spinal Solutions to demonstrate to potential customers the kind of work he could do. The company sold its wares to doctors who received consulting deals from Spinal Solutions worth thousands per month, rides on company planes, even bundles of $100 bills, company insiders allege. The allegations deepen the scandal surrounding a Corona del Mar hospital executive who pleaded guilty in April to paying doctors to bring in patients as part of a $500 million insurance scam. The doctors longtime sales representative, John Sargent, went along for the rides in 2007 and 2008. I had to know if I was part of it, Moses said. By the time Spinal Solutions went broke in 2013, the company had sold millions of dollars in implants to a nationwide network of surgeons, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found. Thats not how things have worked out for Lash, a former Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy, or for dozens of others who say theyre collateral damage in Operation Spinal Cap, the $1 billion medical-fraud investigation that has led to federal charges against more than a dozen Southern California doctors, chiropractors, hospital administrators and others but to no relief for them. Spinal Solutions is accused of running a multimillion-dollar scam in spinal surgery hardware that could leave thousands in pain if their shoddy materials fail. People are dying and no ones doing anything, Sersansie said. Crowder sued Spinal Solutions last July, saying the firm owed him $29,900 "to machine, repair and prototype" tools for doctors. As a result of the intrusive nature of the operation, the surgical hardware cannot be removed without reversing the fusion and without significant risk of death or injury to the patient, says a lawsuit filed by Derika Moses of Riverside. He said, If you dont do it, you will not be able to go back to work. He wouldnt let me go back to work.. Spinal Solutions had supplied surgical hardware to doctors in Wisconsin, Texas, Nevada and Maryland, as well as California, according to court records. (Courtesy of Joshua Lash), Joshua Lash, a retired Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy, shows an X-ray taken after his spinal fusion surgery with what may be counterfeit hardware at his San Bernardino home on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. In a deposition related to creditors, she described getting law enforcement to open the Spinal Solutions offices so she could take hard drives. Patients of former surgeon Cully White have formed a Facebook group to share information. Williams made it clear the consulting deals and free flights were tools to keep doctors hooked on his products, said Quin Rudin, a businessman who poured money into the company when it hit a cash crunch in 2012. 25 Feb/23. Its beyond unethical.. Drobot was allegedly involved in the sale of counterfeit spinal surgery hardware by Spinal Solutions, a Murrietta, California based company. Joshua Lash, a retired Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy, shows an X-ray taken after his spinal fusion surgery with what may be counterfeit hardware at his San Bernardino home on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. The petition was rejected, court records say, in part because Williams failed to disclose his ownership of a second airplane and a second Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The doctor pleaded guilty to billing for nerve monitoring that didnt happen and was sentenced in April to six months in prison and six months on house arrest. Hes always dropping things. Some of the bogus screws cost $300 to make but were billed at as much as $12,500 each, records say. I didnt want to do this, said Lash, whose scar runs down the small of his back. White amassed a $22 million fortune, then scammed insurance companies for a little more, prosecutors said. Hwang said the company first heard about Spinal Solutions counterfeiting from plaintiffs attorneys in 2012 and is not happy about the matter. I lookforwardto moving on, focusing on our patients, and Nevada Spine Clinic's mission to provide excellence in care for patients who suffer from disorders of the spine.". A contractor for Spinal Solutions, the firm accused of distributing the implants, and an attorney for the machine shops owner deny the allegations, saying it is impossible that the elderly machinist mass-produced the hardware. The industry has seen significant growth in sales, going from $250 million in 1994 to $7 billion in 2009, according to Orthopedic Network News, an industry newsletter. I cant. But the dead giveaway was the logo, they said, which lacks the firms signature forward-leaning font. Like you, through recent news reports, Aurora Health Care was made aware of a lawsuit involving former medical device distributor Spinal Solutions, said the letter to Jean Morin of Racine. It soon became apparent, Sersansie says, that unsavory things were happening. After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Williams used his planes to deliver needed medical supplies, and Davis traveled with him. If you or a family member have been in an accident and . McDonough helped create an implant prototype, but in the end, nothing happened to it, Williams said in court testimony. It suggested she might be the victim of medical fraud. I have no idea whats going on inside me.. The lawsuit alleges Dr. Davis received $458,962, primarily in consulting fees, and the hospital purchased more than $1 million in Spinal Solutions hardware. Teri Sforza is one of the lead reporters on the OCR/SCNG probe of fraud, abuse and death in the Southern California addiction treatment industry. Moses lost her job, and then her home, as she grappled with pain and illness after her spinal surgery. CIR reports that Williams spent money flamboyantly, following the Los Angeles Lakers all over the country, and maintaining a BMW, a Mercedes-Benz, a yacht, a private jet and a 6,300-square-foot home. Its not mine.. Many patients became addicted to pain pills after their operations, and many overdosed, they said. Williams filed for bankruptcy in 2013. He told CIR that she did not ask for samples of screws or talk about implants. Williams had an especially volatile relationship with his wife, Mary, whom he once described as the companys chief financial officer. Efforts to reach Williams were unsuccessful. The spine industry is corrupt and it needs a washing from top to bottom.. Update (Nov. 23, 2015): The charges against Nevada surgeon Dr. Jaswinder Grover, which included implanting fake parts into unsuspecting patients, were dismissed in October 2015[PDF]. Spinal screws are not Home Depot fare. Once, Derika Moses was a force to be reckoned with on the softball field. These inadequacies might result in product performance failures that could cause patient harm due to implant breakage, movement, or inadequate sterilization. According to the FDAs recall database, Spinal Solutions responded by issuing a letter that patients who had undergone spinal repair surgeries using the Spinal Solutions hardware to to discontinue use of the affected product and return [it] to the firm. Such an action on the part of a patient would of course require at least one more spinal surgery to remove/replace the spinal hardware. Six Spinal Solution screw caps cost $2,850 but sold to a hospital. The vertebrae spiral down, diffuse as smoke, until they reach a brutal and jagged conclusion: six stark-white images of screws embedded deep into bone, lashed together by metal rods. Still, he said he would not be worried if they ended up in peoples backs and necks. There was some old stuff in his shop, Crowder acknowledged, but also modern equipment and a quality control system. 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