Calif. lawsuits allege kickbacks, bogus spine hardware, insurance fraud

A lawsuit filed in Sacramento. California, alleges physicians used bogus hardware in spinal surgeries and took kickbacks from a Corona del Mar, California, hospital executive, while middlemen and hospitals profited by inflating the cost of the devices.

Michael Drobot, former owner of Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, pleaded guilty to paying physicians as much as $15,000 in kickbacks to perform spinal fusion surgeries—in which rods and screws are implanted in the back to relieve pain—in his hospital as part of a $500 million insurance scam. A separate whistleblower lawsuit alleges that many of the patients with the fake implants may not have needed the surgery at all.

Source: Center for Investigative Reporting