To use our poetic license as Daryl Hall's voice echoes;
Easy ready willing overtime, when does it stop where do you dare to draw your line
You got his body now you got his soul, don't think about it, say no go
On April 10, 2012 it was reported in various news outlets that a former Orthofix VP of Sales Thomas Guerrieri pled guilty to federal charges (that's serving 80% of the conviction) that he helped run a scheme to pay doctors (say what!) to use Orthofix bone-growth stimulators. Guerrieri faces up to five (that's right), five years in a federal prison after pleading guilty to federal charges that he orchestrated a scheme to pay doctors to use the company's Spinal-Stim and Cervical-Stim bone growth stimulators. TG copped a plea in a Boston court. If this case would have gone to trial, it has been reported that the federali's would have proven that he set up a phony consulting deal with the infamous "Dr. S." Dr. S it seems was one of Orthofix's highest prescribing customers according to court documents. Orthofix paid out tens of thousands of dollars to the physician in return for little or no work, sounds familiar?
So here is another in the long line of schemes that infect the medical device industry. Mr. X sets up Mr.Y and compensates Mr. Y for each stimulator that he orders by a creating a third party vendor making it more difficult to identify the paper trail. At 51, if given the maximum sentence, five long ones in the web, TG is going to spend four years in a federal prison all for the love of the Almighty Dollar. So is this the end of another saga in a long list of medical device scams, and what happens to the infamous Dr. S? Does he go the way of the infamous person of special interest #7 as in the Norian debacle? Come on Mssr. Prosecutor say it ain't so. As the Federal Prosecutor was leaving the Courtroom, they were heard singing, "I can't go for that, No, No can do! TSB wants to know, where are all the bodies buried?
Tres hermanos are still partying on the streets and laughing at the DOJ. My guess is TG only got his annual bonus for this scam. Tres hermanos walked away with $300 million...
ReplyDeleteGlobus is going public!
ReplyDeleteHow many Orthofix VP's are being prosecuted? TG and MS are there others? If VPs are doing this what are the reps doing? Playing by the book, not.
ReplyDeleteThey really need to go after Eric Brown.
DeleteIt seems to be that sham consulting agreements and the same as PODs. What is the difference? What about the surgeons? We all know that many if not most have their hands out wanting to get paid for doing no work. How many of you have lost legitimate business because some slimy rep managed to get your customer a consulting deal? The hard truth is that the surgeon are really the slimy ones urging industry to provide them with kickbacks for their business. Until surgeons are rightfully prosecuted for their crimes in PODs and consultant deals, the crocked business will go on. If this were prostitution, the surgeons would be the whores and the industry people are the johns.
ReplyDeleteWhat, if anything, happens to the dirty doc and slimy PA? Nothing?
ReplyDelete@12:30 Fully Agree. I see it everyday in my medium sized midwest city. I would hesitate to say it is Surgeons who are the slimy ones, more of a 50/50 with manufactures and surgeons. We all know that every one of the companies out there do, relatively, the same deals. Just the other day I heard about Styker's "Young Lions" consultants and I know Medtronic has a similar "fresh out of fellowship, lets lock them into a consulting deal" game. I am not sure if DePuy/Synthes/Globus/NuVasive have a similar deal, but they are far from clean. Fortunately the surgeon who mentioned being offered one of the deals from Big Blue, has the game figured out well and wants no part in it.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of one of my favorite Black Keys songs:
"Same Old Thing"
It don't matter where you've been
The people try to do you in
Every day till dawn
There's some thievin' goin' on
Oh, oh no
Hurt me so
Young Lions with Stryker is nothing new. Hell we have one of their "consulting surgeons" for Young Lions in the Sac area. What a crock of BS it is.
DeleteWhat you're saying about young consultants at "Big Blue" just isn't fact. They provide some resources for young surgeons in or fresh out of training, but very similar to what all companies have been legally doing for years. What people hear or perceive is not always fact.
DeleteTSB: Can we get back to the original color on this site that does not create headaches?
ReplyDeleteMore to come from Grassley/Kohl on POD's....
http://www.massdevice.com/blogs/massdevice/senators-grassley-and-kohl-send-another-letter-cms-regarding-implementation-sunshin
It's temporary, we need to wake up our readers.
ReplyDeleteBeing formerly from Stryker, the Young Lions deal is a pretty good bennie that they provide to help stand up the new surgeons' practices with billing, marketing, websites, etc. They need to do stuff like this since their metal line is so scruffy. Sorry but nothing untoward going on here.
ReplyDeleteStryker has been doing this in one shape or form for years. Same old platform going by a different name.
ReplyDeleteHey DOJ, nothing is going to change unless you take down some of the slimy surgeons and make examples out of them. We all know the surgeons in our territory with their hand out and more than willing to take the money. Put a wire on some reps and AVP's with conversations with them. Hell I had a surgeon email me that he wouldnt use the product unless we paid him.
ReplyDeleteIf you have that in an email, you don't need a wiretap. Do something! Posting on here is not exactly contacting the DOJ. Their local agents number is in the phone book.
DeleteWho is Dr. S????
ReplyDeleteEd Scheid
ReplyDelete