{"id":12262,"date":"2015-05-25T14:07:28","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=12262"},"modified":"2015-05-25T14:08:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:08:24","slug":"neurosurgeon-admits-to-performing-unnecessary-spinal-surgeries-on-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=12262","title":{"rendered":"Neurosurgeon Admits to Performing Unnecessary Spinal Surgeries on Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

MICHIGAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Detroit-Area Neurosurgeon admitted on Friday that he performed unnecessary spinal surgeries and billed Medicare, Medicaid and private insurances for $11 million for the operations, officials said.<\/p>\n

\"Aria<\/a>
Dr. Aria O. Sabit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Aria O. Sabit<\/strong>, 39, of Birmingham, Michigan, plead guilty plead to four counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, resulting in losses to Medicare, Medicaid and various private insurance companies.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman scheduled sentencing for September. He is facing up to 11 years in prison, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case of health care fraud is particularly egregious because Dr. Sabit caused serious bodily injury to his patients by acting out of his own greed instead of the best interests of his patients,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade.\u00a0 \u201cNot only did he steal $11 million in insurance proceeds, but he also betrayed his trust to patients by lying to them about the procedures that were medically necessary and that were actually performed.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Sabit was a licensed neurosurgeon who owned and operated the Michigan Brain and Spine Physicians Group with various locations, including Southfield, Michigan, Clinton Township, Michigan, and Dearborn, Michigan.<\/p>\n

Sabit admit with his guilty plea that he made\u00a0significant profits by convincing patients to undergo spinal fusion surgeries. Also he admitted to submitted paperwork to support fraudulent insurance claims.<\/p>\n

He also admitted that before moving to Michigan, he was a resident of Ventura, California, and a licensed neurosurgeon in California. In 2010, he became involved with Apex Medical Technologies LLC while he was on the staff of a California hospital.<\/p>\n

Apex was owned by another neurosurgeon and three non-physicians who operated Apex as a physician-owned distributorship. They paid neurosurgeons lucrative illegal kickbacks tied directly to the volume and complexity of the surgeries that the surgeons performed, and the number of Apex spinal implant devices the surgeons used in their spine surgeries, according to officials.<\/p>\n

In exchange for the opportunity to invest in Apex and share in its profits, Sabit admitted that he agreed to convince his hospital to buy spinal implant devices from Apex and use a sufficient number of Apex spinal implant devices in his spine surgeries.<\/p>\n

Sabit further admitted that he and Apex\u2019s co-owners used Apex to operate an illegal kickback scheme.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0concealed Sabit\u2019s involvement in Apex from outsiders.\u00a0 Sabit then required the hospitals and surgical centers where he and his fellow neurosurgeon performed surgeries to purchase spinal implant devices from Apex.<\/p>\n

Sabit admitted that his involvement in Apex, and the financial incentives provided to him by Apex and his co-conspirators, made him to compromise his medical judgment. He said it caused serious bodily injury to his patients by performing medically unnecessary spine surgeries on some of the patients in whom he implanted Apex spinal implant devices, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Officials said Sabit said the money he made from using Apex spinal implant devices motivated him either to refer patients in for spine surgery who did not medically need surgery or refer his patients for more complex surgeries, such as multi-level spine fusions, that they did not need.<\/p>\n

Sabit also admitted that the financial incentives provided to him by Apex and his co-conspirators caused him to \u201cover instrument\u201d his patients.<\/p>\n

This means that Sabit used more spinal implant devices than were medically necessary to treat his patients in order to generate more sales revenue for Apex, which resulted in serious bodily injury to his patients, officials said.
\nSabit is also a defendant in two civil False Claims Act <\/a>cases filed by the Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court in California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MICHIGAN Detroit-Area Neurosurgeon admitted on Friday that he performed unnecessary spinal surgeries and billed Medicare, Medicaid and private insurances for $11 million for the operations, officials said. Dr. Aria O. Sabit, 39,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-12262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-main-slider","category-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-medicare-fraud"],"yoast_head":"\nNeurosurgeon Admits to Unnecessary Spinal Surgeries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Detroit-Area Neurosurgeon admitted on Friday that he performed unnecessary spinal surgeries and billed Medicare for $11 million for the operations\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=12262\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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