As a part of the ongoing investigation into health care, hospice fraud, it is interesting to note the following post on the FBI blog:
http://www.fbi.gov/chicago/press-releases/2014/illinois-hospice-executive-charged-with-federal-health-care-fraud-for-allegedly-falsely-elevating-level-of-patients-care
You will note that an attorney was involved (Seth Gillman of Lincolnwood) and indicted in the ND Illinois Federal Court for falsely targeting and dragging into hospice care dozens of dozens of patients that did not qualify for hospice care. They were simply “upgraded” to first class because well, easy govt money was left on the table completely unattended, or so they all thought.
Now go ahead and do an “attorney search” at the IARDC and you will note the IARDC has not filed, and there are no charges pending again Atty Seth Gillman. (Presumably because Atty Gillman never spoke out against attorneys and health care fraud and the targeting of seniors as a commodity or get rich quick scheme. In fact, when one of the employees at one of his companies questioned what was going on and the large bonuses paid to certain personnel–he was quick to tell them to shut the fudge up! A true leader in the code of attorney silence in fraud).
From the FBI website: Gillman, an attorney, is the corporate agent, administrator, and one-fourth owner of Passages Hospice LLC, based in west suburban Lisle, and is also the agent and secretary of Asta Healthcare Company Inc., which operates Asta Care Center nursing homes in Bloomington, Colfax, Elgin, Ford County, Pontiac, Rockford, and Toluca, Illinois…… As Passages grew, it divided its operations into geographic regions covering Chicago and the western suburbs, Rockford, Bloomington, and Belleville, with different nurses, nursing directors, and medical directors for each region.
Note the huge level of involvement in the Illinois area–to the point of patient saturation, yet the indictment was from January, and here it is May and you will note the IARDC has not taken any action, even though the scheme began in 2008 to defraud medicare and Gillman was indicted in early 2014–that’s 6 years of silence on this scheme.
No doubt the IARDC would prosecute me for publishing information from the FBI or the US Office of Inspector General, but it remains suspiciously silent on health care fraud allegedly perp’d by atty Gilman which rises to the level of a 70 page affidavit to support his indictment.
How much money is involved in this scheme (remember Omnicare was $150 million, Shinfa Mental Health Care out of Louisanna was $258 million, etc.–see http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/enforcement/criminal/index.asp for details on millions and millions of dollars lost in fraud in just early 2014 alone!)
What kind of money was Gillman making?:
In fiscal year 2012, Medicare’s daily reimbursement for GIP was $671.84, while the daily payment for routine care was $151.23. According to claims data, from January 2006 to late 2011, Passages submitted claims for approximately 4,769 patients to Medicare and/or Medicaid and was paid approximately $95 million from Medicare and approximately $30 million from Medicaid. Between July 2008 and late 2011, Passages was paid approximately $23 million by Medicare for claimed GIP services, in addition to Medicaid payments for claimed GIP services submitted on behalf of more than 200 patients.
The charges further allege that in the fall of 2008, Gillman began paying bonuses, sometimes well in excess of their salary, to Passages’ directors overseeing nurses and certified nursing assistants based on the amount of GIP under their supervision. Gillman also authorized large bonuses to himself and a co-administrator, Individual A, based on the number of patients per day at certain nursing homes in the Belleville region, including $833,375 to himself between March 2009 and April 2011. The bonuses increased as the number of patients on GIP increased and as the number of facilities counted for the bonuses increased, according to the affidavit.
What is the penalty for health care fraud?
Health care fraud carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and obstructing a federal audit carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and restitution is mandatory.
Ken and I are publishing this and will continue to analyze the situation because just what kind of scheme did we step into with the likes of the Sykes case (in particular), Gore, Wyman, Drabik, Tyler, and many, many others where the law is X but the courts are doing Y–and they do it with apparent impunity, only punishing severely any attorney that runs a blog (myself), or continues to investigate probate court and issues hundreds of emails, faxes and letters to law enforcement (Ditkowsky) after we were both clearly told by those doing Y when the law is X to shut the fudge up — or else!
Why is the ARDC so silent, and why did atty Gillman operate for years without the IARDC saying a peep and where are they now on this issue? There must have been complaints filed.
This blog is not going to shut up however, until the law is X and the courts and attorneys in probate are doing exactly X.
The fact that the US Dept of the OIG (Office of Inspector General) is publishing indictments and making clear the level of money to be extracted out of the US health care system–even by Illinois attorneys, certainly is not something the ARDC wants made public when Illinois attorneys are seeing the effects that health care fraud–in the hundreds of millions–has upon the medical field, and it is this fraud and greed which is the root cause of the problems that are spilling over into the court system.
While many, many people fear that single payer health care would simply be far too expensive, after reviewing the indictments made just in early 2014, it is clear that hundreds of millions of dollars are simply going to fraud, and if that fraud were eliminated it would have a huge impact on healthcare for those actually needing it, if doctors and medical professionals all were delivering the real thing–not fraud. If a huge chunk of the US health care system is fraud, then perhaps by eliminating that, we could afford universal health care for everyone.
The upshot? While all of this is going on, Atty Gillman is listed as a perfectly good attorney to hire according to the IARDC website. Ken and myself apparently are not.
What the IARDC says about Ken Ditkowsky:
under information:
Mr. Ditkowsky, who was licensed in 1961, was suspended for four years and until further order of the Court. He made false or reckless statements about the qualifications and integrity of judges presiding over a guardianship matter. In addition, he sent a letter falsely stating that he represented the ward in that proceeding.
Note carefully they do not link to the letter. NEVER LINK TO THE LETTER. Never let the public know that 1) the letter clearly says he was conducting an investigation and once that was complete he would only then represent Mary G Sykes and 2) his main witness, the Honorable Jane Louis Stuart SUDDENLY retired on Thursday, May 8, 2014.
Hey look, I can link to the letter:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6FbJzwtHocwT0YxWEEwdkFnS0k/edit?usp=sharing
The question is, why doesn’t the ARDC link to that letter right on the page involved?
Here is the link to Ken Ditkowsky’s page:
http://www.iardc.org/ldetail.asp?id=284805088 — (if link does not work, go to http://www.iardc.org and click on “atty search” and put in “ditkowsky” under “last name”)
I can link to a page to support my blog posts, why don’t they?
Why doesn’t the ARDC mention that the Hon Jane Louis Stuart retired May 8, 2014, or why don’t they publish her testimony during my trial on my ARDC page when she was a main witness? Why don’t they publish the audio from the court reporter so people can hear what she said and compare it to the transcript? All of this is technologically possible, even by a grammar school child given the data. A 2nd grader now knows how to start, run and publish on a blog any sort of PDF, MP3 or MP4 file, etc. but the ARDC does not know how to do this? Come on now.
IF I HAD THE MP3 AUDIO FROM THAT COURT REPORTER I WOULD PUBLISH IT NOW FOR YOU THE READER.
She apparently still has a webpage, sans information, why is that?
http://www.cookcountycourt.org/JudgesPages/StuartJaneLouise.aspx
AND, most notably she is still listed under judges:
http://www.cookcountycourt.org/ABOUTTHECOURT/CountyDepartment/ProbateDivision/JudgesInformation.aspx
I postulate that if I published someone on my website had retired and I did not take it down right away, the ARDC would be all over me to tell the truth promptly, but it looks like the Circuit Court of Cook County, IL, gets the “big free hall pass” on that one. Teacher always writes a hall pass for her pets. The rest of the brats like me and Ken have to hold it until recess and stand in line.
MY CONCLUSION: (which is really just a bunch of annoying questions the IARDC will NOT want to answer)
1) Why doesn’t the ARDC website link to the FAMOUS Dr. Patel letter on Ken’s “information page”
2) Why doesn’t the ARDC mention that Judge Stuart, one of Ken’s and my main witnesses “suddenly” retired on May 8, 2014
3) Why doesn’t the ARDC provide the audio of Judge Stuart’s court testimony so the public can HEAR and COMPARE to the transcript which I previously published?
I can and have linked to all of these above. THIS BLOG IS TRANSPARENT AND HONEST WHY CAN’T THE IARDC DO THE SAME?