In today's news (March 30):
"[Dr. Keroack] has resigned due to legal actions taken against his Massachusetts private medical practice by state Medicaid officials, according to the Washington Post."
Anybody here know what the "legal action" against Dr. K's private practice was about????
Anybody here know what the "legal action" against Dr. K's private practice was about????
The Boston Globe had an article about it:
That link takes you to page 2 of the article, which is where the article describes the complaint filed against Keroack. I've bold-faced two particularly interesting paragraphs:
In the 2005 complaint, the patient's daughter, who had once been Keroack's patient, alleged that the doctor gave her mother money for groceries, evenings out with her husband, and a Cape Cod getaway for the couple. "What MD does this???" the daughter wrote the board of medicine in writing.
But she seemed most upset by a letter he had recently sent urging her to make peace with her parents, who had both been diagnosed with cancer.
Using exclamation points, all-capitalized sentences, and quotes from country singer Randy Travis, Keroack urged his patient's daughter to make up with her mother "before it's too late to fix it." "If either of your parents were to die tomorrow . . . . YOU and ONLY you will be responsible for the losses that will surely follow," wrote the gynecologist, now 47.
In her complaint to the board, the daughter wrote: "I haven't been able to sleep; I am upset all of the time because I cannot get over the fact the he would have the audacity to send me such an invasive, unethical letter."
Keroack could not be reached yesterday for comment. But in a 13-page letter to the board, he called the charges -- of insurance fraud, distributing medication to nonpatients, and behaving unprofessionally or unethically -- "patently false."
In a separate letter to the board, Keroack's patient defended him, telling the board that her daughter's complaint was "filled with false statements, distortions, misrepresentations and lies . . . ."
"Without Dr. Keroack's help, we would have been unable to put food on the table because medications cost us a fortune to buy," the patient wrote the board. "Dr. Keroack never asked for anything in return for these generous gifts, he merely asked that we accept them as being from him personally because he felt that we deserved to be helped. I admit it is unusual for people to display such generosity in today's world . . . but it isn't improper. It is right."
On Jan. 10, the board of medicine sent Keroack two letters. One warned him against practicing psychotherapy with patients without adequate training and supervision. "Should you choose to pursue this practice, you should do so only after receiving education in the identification and management of boundary issues," the letter said.
Doctors are barred from doing anything that oversteps the clear boundary between doctor and patient. "That can be a lot of things," explained board spokesman Russell Aims, "anything from a psychiatrist having sessions at the patient's home or a doctor driving a patient someplace after an appointment to loans, personal gifts, favors."
The second letter warned Keroack to conform to the state's prescribing practices. "You should familiar[ize] yourself with the Board's policy and adhere to the guidelines to avoid problems in the future. You may not prescribe to individuals who are not your patients," the letter said.
A warning is not considered disciplinary action, which would be reported to federal authorities, Aims said. Keroack came under heavy criticism from abortion rights advocates for his connection to crisis-pregnancy centers that show ultrasound images of fetuses to pregnant women in an effort to dissuade them from having abortions.
-Dave