Stolen Credentialing Information
Panos allegedly submitted the credentialing information of a licensed physician who is an orthopedic surgeon employed by a practice in Westchester County, New York, not Excel Orthopedics. That unidentified surgeon, according to the government, “did not submit his/her credentialing information to the review companies referred to above, did not conduct any peer reviews, did not authorize Panos or anyone else to use his/her credentialing information to conduct peer reviews, and did not receive any of the review company fees for services he/she was falsely represented to have performed.”
Between the time Excel was formed until three months after Panos surrendered to serve his sentence for the health care fraud charge, the government said checks totaling over $239,000 were issued by review companies and deposited into Excel.
Then, two months after Panos was released from prison, the government says a second Excel account was opened. Between December 2016 to October 2017, over $636,500 in checks issued by five review companies were deposited into the second account.
After the checks were deposited, the government alleges that funds were then transferred into a third Panos family account. Of those withdrawals, over $100,000 were transferred to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Surveillance videos, the government complaint states, show Panos and a family member at the credit union transferring money to the family account.
“Jaw-Dropping Hubris”
“Jaw-dropping hubris,” is how York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott reportedly described Panos’ actions. “The alleged actions … demonstrate the apparent lack of remorse and a clear disdain for making an honest living.”
Previous Panos Allegations
When we first reported on Panos in September 2013, lawyers representing 153 former Panos patients and plaintiffs in a lawsuit, told us that at least one-third of the firm’s cases involve patients who had been told by a second physician, after surgeries by Panos, that the procedures were not actually performed.
One of their clients, according to Panos’ surgical records, needed an acromioclavicular (AC) joint recession. Instead Panos allegedly performed a rotator cuff repair.
The lawyers also told us of a case where Panos claimed to have performed a full hip arthroplasty, when in fact, he had only performed a partial arthroplasty. Another former patient, died less than 24-hours after having an alleged “phantom” knee surgery.
The local paper reported on a lawsuit filed against Panos by a patient who said he never got better after two surgeries. He claims Panos didn’t actually operate on his knees and made him worse by improperly operating on his big toe.
The paper, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported that Panos was doing individual medical evaluations for Fiduciary Insurance Company of America and then was arrested in Maryland for allegedly shoplifting baseball cards from a local Wal-Mart.
From 2007 to 2011, the government said Panos received more than $7.5 million in compensation for his work at Mid-Hudson Medical Group.
He performed as many as 20 surgeries a day, routinely saw 60 patients a day and at times saw more than 90 patients a day. The medical practice submitted more than $35 million in health care claims for his work, from 2006 to 2011, and it received $13 million in payments.
