From a press release:
The 25th patient of a Jefferson County, Missouri chiropractic office involved in a multi-million dollar disability fraud conspiracy was sentenced Wednesday as part of an ongoing fraud investigation. Six more patients are set for sentencing next year. ...
The two chiropractors who owned and operated PowerMed Inc., Thomas G. Hobbs and Vivian Carbone-Hobbs, are in federal prison, serving four-year prison terms. Hobbs was ordered to repay $4.3 million; Carbone-Hobbs was ordered to repay $16.4 million. ...
Many patients worked at Anheuser-Busch. ...
[The chiropractors] charged patients fees of thousands of dollars to prepare disability forms and coach them on how to lie about their ability to perform basic daily tasks such as lifting, standing, walking, sitting and taking care of their personal needs. According to evidence and testimony presented at the trials ... some patients were presented with a “Disability Package Pricing” sheet that listed the fees ranging as high as $8,600 for PowerMed to handle various disability claims options, including qualifying for Social Security disability, short-term disability, private insurance and insurance that would pay off auto or other loans. The total fees exceeded more than $13,000 for some patients. ...
I don't understand how anything coming from a chiropractor's office could have much impact on a disability claim. They sure don't when they come up -- legitimately -- in my clients’ cases.
10 comments:
The answer to your question may lie here.
“Hobbs, who also falsely claimed to have a medical license, submitted fraudulent medical reports to support patient claims.”
Chiro Tx notes carry very little water, it's mostly just boilerplate that goes on and on. I don't recall ever having to contend with a chiro MO.
The moral to this story: Don't mix Budweiser with chiropractic treatments.
The only rare instance I've seen chiropractic records be useful is when they take range of motion measurements or refer a patient out for an MRI or x-ray. Rare, but it happens.
These "coached" claimants are often the worst testifiers. I run into this with a category of Workers Comp clients who think prior coaching is transferable to SSD cases.
Literally had a hearing yesterday where I told the client the night before it is not credible to testify that you can only walk/stand for 5 minutes due to a back impairment that was untreated. Told him to focus on his upper extremity injuries that he actually treated for. Guess what he talked about first unprompted...the fact that it was chronic injury from many years earlier made his testimony worse--b/c it raises the obvious question of "how were you able to work a medium exertional job" two years ago with no complaints of back pain?
I'm sure part of the process involved coaching them how to behave to real medical professionals.
Lol!
Agree here, unless the chiro considers the back problem serious enough to warrant an MRI, their records are not much help to me.
I represented a number of SSA claimants treated by Dr. Hobbs. His scheme was primarily with LTD claims for AB employees. The SSA cases were an add on. The SSA claimants I represented had no idea he was overstating their cases in his reports. None of my clients ever paid him as far as I knew. Most of the local judges saw through the exaggerated reports.
ALJs may have seen through them, but I bet the courts didn’t.
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