The article below by Dr. Bharani Padmanabhan was published in The Valley Patriot in print in April. Will update when it is available online.
State Auditor’s Office Protects The Big Swamp From The Law
Bharani Padmanabhan MD PhD
People on food stamps are the lowest rung on the economic ladder, people who need charity just to eat. Going after poor people helps bureaucrats pretend they care about taxpayers. By targetting people on assistance, the state auditor’s office fools everyone by deflecting attention from its refusal to audit high crimes by the ‘elite’ reptiles in control of the Massachusetts swamp.
This week the state auditor’s office preened itself on identifying $10.7 million of Medicaid fraud. In absolute terms this $10.7 million is a hill of beans given that we lose $4 billion annually to healthcare fraud nationally. Given that Massachusetts’ fiscal 2018 healthcare budget is $21.7 billion, this $10.7 million is a convenient farce. Almost a rounding error at 0.049% of annual state health costs and 0.27% of the annual national fraud.
The auditor’s enabling statute, MGL ch. 11 § 12, declares: “Section 12. The department of the state auditor shall audit the accounts, programs, activities and functions directly related to the aforementioned accounts of all departments, offices, commissions, institutions and activities of the commonwealth, including those of districts and authorities created by the general court and including those of the income tax division of the department of revenue.” Note it says SHALL, not may if you feel like it.
The state auditor’s office goes after poor people to conceal the fact that the vast majority of our ‘departments, offices, commissions, institutions and activities’ go totally unaudited. As a matter of common sense, where do you think the vast majority of the money disappears? Naturally we didn’t hear about the invisible State Police salaries from the state auditor either.
For three years now Dr Michael Langan and I have been trying to get the state auditor’s office to audit the state medical board and its illegal kickback relationship with the Massachusetts Medical Society. This effort involved emails and meetings in person with Deputy Auditor Ken Woodland and with Director William Keefe, who is with the Bureau of Special Investigations and allegedly the point person to combat white collar crime. As with everything to do with state government, reality is a bummer.
Dr Langan presented Keefe with hard evidence that showed Board lawyer Robert Harvey fabricated a false document to serve as a pretext for suspending a doctor’s license as punishment for refusing to pay extortion money to the medical society. A classic protection racket with license suspension as the Board’s form of breaking the victim’s leg. At a minimum it was Keefe’s duty to report Harvey to the SJC’s Bar Overseers for violating its Rules on Professional Conduct. Keefe did not.
Dr Langan presented Keefe with hard evidence that showed Asst. AG Bryan Bertram consciously lied to the court and concealed evidence of forensic fraud and obstruction. Exactly like the state lawyers did in the Sonja Farak case. At a minimum it was Keefe’s duty to report Bertram to the SJC’s Bar Overseers for violating the Rules and obstructing justice. He did not.
Dr Langan presented Keefe with hard evidence that showed a long-running procurement fraud and kickback scheme between the medical society and Board lawyers that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars. It has been three years and the auditors have refused to audit, let alone report crime.
Two years ago I presented Deputy Auditor Woodland in person with documents showing the renting out of the Board by its lawyers to other doctors in order to ‘take out’ their competition. I also gave him documents showing the parking of tax dollars by the Board in a private foundation invisible to the public. A secret slush fund.
Here is Keefe’s response today (4/4/18): “Sir, As Ken and I have discussed with you and Michael, we will be looking into your concerns when we audit the agency. Bill Keefe.” So, when I report a crime, it is merely ‘my concern.’
It is very difficult to collect the documentary evidence but Dr Langan has done it. And the auditors are angry because now they cannot say they do not know.
Henry Morgenthau proved that everyone at the State dept. knew about the holocaust as it was unfolding and concealed the facts to avoid public pressure to save the Jews. Everyone at the state auditor’s office is no better.
The auditors know that these crimes by Board lawyers and the medical society caused numerous doctors to commit suicide in the prime of their life. These suicides occurred because the state auditor knew about the crimes and ongoing deaths of despair and did nothing. Same as the diplomats at State during the holocaust.
(Bharani Padmanabhan MD PhD is a multiple sclerosis neurologist. On July 12, 2017 the state medical board stole his license because he reported Medicaid fraud to the government. scleroplex@gmail.com)
Disrupted Physician 
NOt sure about Mass but the AZ Legislature can order a full audit besides the every 10 year one.
Just wrote an article about this , and I think the same problem exists in Mass(because of Romney)
the Auditor Gen office for 35 years is a mormon with the majority of the staff, she is gone as of last month and a new person Lindsey Berry, who has a very mormon name and Mesa address . While the department who reviews the BON has 6 members , 3 are BYU graduates, and 3 ASU ( which the president of ASU (crow ) speaks at the podium BYU. through all the appeals I have never gotten a judge who was not mormon , even in the 3 bunk panel mormons , the Superior COurt Chief is Mormon, and if you remember the Judge who was never in the court room who signed another judges case is a Bishop Mormon. They just do NOT go against other mormons. Supreme court rejected hearing my case , has Mormons on it. the entire BON is mormons. as well as staff. I requested how many hours this ghost ALJ was paid , from the auditor gen , TWO MONTHS later after they ‘fixed ‘ the books, the atty for the auditor general MORMON, replied. Contact the BON. Cannot help but think that the MASS BON went after me during my brief writing , (MY LICENSE EXPIRED THERE TWO YEARS !!!) sending me pkts of certified and regular mail , every other day for these months. Now a piano box full. People say dont go about it with mormon mentioned but I cannot see that their is anything else that is so corrupt as this connection. Ducey was CEO for cold stone creamery a mormon co. The Auditor gen office, in Tucson said they pick ‘radom charts to audit ” , as it the BON does not have them hand picked !!! so the auditor gen site says the bon ‘takes average 7 months to finish a case” my case was 2011- 2016 (took 3 1/2 yrs to get to court . A nurse in PENN had license by AZ complaint 2005 revoked 2013 Penn DID NOTHING TO HIS LICENSE> to this day. ! 8 years . ! The Auditor General in aZ is a JOKE , she got an email from me will are watching, and can she do her job by the letter of the law. ? good article same BS different state.
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As long as licensing boards, including and especially the medical board, benefit from preying upon their own licensees they will continue to engage in unethical and often illegal practices. Add to this, the state, including the administrative law system, instead of protecting licensees and patients are busy pouring millions into protecting their boards. It is no wonder, with no fear of reprisal, that these licensing boards engage in every kind of malfeasance unchecked. It is time for the general populace to understand that these boards are not looking out for the public interest but for their own. It is time for them to recognize that these boards lie, fabricate evidence against licensees that are often wholly innocent, squander tax payers money attacking these professionals then defend their own actions in an administrative law system that is broken. In this nation there should never be the loss of reputation, license and livelihood without due process. Administrative law doesn’t allow you to have a jury, hear say is allowed, when the board runs the ruined professional out of money and they have to represent themselves they aren’t allowed support in the hearing and face innumerable attorneys, board employees and board “experts” once again paid for by, you guessed it, tax payer money. This of course may be supplemented buy the fines the board raises from it’s victims. And if by chance the licensee prevails the boards have the power to over rule the Administrative law judge’s findings. There is no criminal in this nation that is treated like a dedicated professional who has been targeted by their board, often for something no more sinister than having a different theoretical orientation or by competing with a board member for patients.
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Sometimes you wonder if the state auditor has the ability to stand up to powerful interests and isn’t itself one of the corrupt players.
In North Carolina, in response to four senior physicians’ concerns about false diagnoses being made by the NCPHP (see NCPHP Audit http://www.ncauditor.net/EPSWeb/Reports/Performance/PER-2013-8141.pdf), NC Auditor Beth Wood revealed that NCPHP had violated the due process rights of 1,140 physicians over the preceding decade. She then went further in a subsequent audit and found that the NC Medical Board itself, as well as all other licensing boards in NC, were operating with such a lack of oversight that their operations jeopardized both citizens and the professionals they licensed.
I hope the auditor in MA has the same chutzpah. However, corrupt power networks have a way of ensuring that they all stay in the same corrupt network together. The dangers of confronting corruption are significant.
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Reblogged this on Disrupted Physician and commented:
Audit officially started May 7, 2019. Office of State Auditor Suzanne Bump’s Director of Audit Planning and Review Billy Keefe refused to address any of the evidence of fraud prior to the start of the audit. Now that the audit has started he is disregarding it and excluding it from the audit (claiming it would bias results!). He is essentially excluding all evidence of fraud from the Physician Health and Compliance (PHC) Board counsel audit for purposes of determining no fraud exists! Need to terminate this tainted audit ASAP and put a spotlight directly on the documents Keefe is trying to bury.
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