Maryland Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog
Dr. Mark Midei, the cardiologist accused of implanting unnecessary cardiac stents in over five hundred people, has been administratively charged by the Maryland Board of Physicians, according to the charging document made public today. The charges include “gross overutilization of health care services” and “willfully making a false report or record in the practice of medicine.”
The charges stem from an investigation by St. Joseph Medical Center, which began after a St. Joe employee claimed that Dr. Midei was fraudulently implanting patients with cardiac stents. St. Joe’s investigation, which examined only a two year time frame during which Dr. Midei performed 2000 stent procedures, found that approximately one in four cardiac stents that he emplaced (over 500 patients) were unnecessary.
In my opinion, the charges are certain to be sustained in this high-profile instance of medical malpractice. It is one thing for a patient or a patient’s lawyers to accuse a doctor of malpractice, but when Dr. Midei’s former employer and peers on the medical board accuse him of widespread malpractice, common sense dictates that it has merit.
In fact, I continue to believe that Dr. Midei will be criminally charged with Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud and insurance fraud. I think it is only a matter of time.
What is amazing to me is that St. Joe still does not plan to go back and examine more than two years of Dr. Midei’s cases. If we were dealing with a business that does not owe a moral, ethical and professional duty to the public, I could understand it, as the further St. Joe goes back the more claims there will be filed against St. Joe. But St. Joe is not just a business; as a provider of health care it has an obligation to tell patients when one of its doctors committed malpractice. The Maryland Department of Health and Human Services should require St. Joe to go back as far as St. Joe records allow, so that everybody who did not need a stent is notified. If they found over five hundred cases of unnecessary implants over a two year period, that means that if they go back six years, there are probably another thousand people who currently believe they have severe heart disease (because Midei misled them) when they in fact do not. As I have said before, I have a stent case from 2004 involving a small blockage which Dr. Midei said was 80% blocked, so I know that he has been unnecessary placing stents in patients for triple the time-frame examined by St. Joe.
As an experienced Baltimore, Maryland medical malpractice lawyer, I have successfully handled many medical malpractice cases involving cardiac issues. Right now, I am representing about a dozen people with cases against Dr. Midei for unnecessary stents. I am handling these cases individually, not grouping them into a class action. To see some of the cases I have handled, click here To see some of the cases I have handled, click here.
Contact Andrew G. Slutkin with further questions or inquiries at 410-385-2786