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05/22/2014
RESPONSES/COMMENTS (IN THE COURTS)
From: Richard W. Boone, Sr. Esq.
Anyone concerned about the supposed religious prejudice involved in the revocation of the Ohio podiatrist's DME enrollment would be well advised to read Dr. Paul Kesselman's thoughtful analysis of the situation. Dr. Kesselman is absolutely correct in his analysis and conclusions. This was not a case of prejudice but, rather, an accurate application by a federal judge of the federal law to the undisputed facts. In other words, under federal law, the ALJ had no choice but to reach the conclusion he reached and affirm the revocation of enrollment given the record which was before him.
But Dr. Kesselman's brilliant commentary failed to make the one teaching point which I believe needs to be made out of this sad tale: Physicians who accept federal or state monies are no longer the absolute rulers of their own domains as they once were. The Ohio podiatrist in this case made one big error which cost him his enrollment: He mistakenly thought he had the right to run his practice in a manner which best suited his own needs and desires. In doing so, he chose to ignore (or never bothered to read) the federal regulations governing DME providers which he swore to follow when he accepted the federal money paid for durable medical devices. His own ignorance or disregard of those regulations was the cause of his disenrollment.
As the federal government is becoming a larger and larger factor in the payment issues of the healthcare industry, situations like those in this case are going to become more common rather than less common. If you do not follow the federal regs to the letter and dot every "I" and cross every "T", you will have to pay the penalty. And, unfortunately, it makes no difference whether you intended to violate the regs. All the government needs to do is to prove that you violated them. Once that is accomplished, your motives become legally irrelevant. Sadly, it's no longer the "physician-patient" relationship which is important. It's the "physician-patient-government" relationship which counts.
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