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Does anyone read the New York Post? How long will it take someone at the Herald to remove this comment and they have removed all of my other posting, which were true and accurate and complies with every aspect of the TOS agreement. After you read this, please ask LBMC to post a copy any settlement agreement involving the subject reported in the NY Post article. The following article involving the Long Beach Medical Center Hospital appears on the NY POST website. It's my understanding that Long Beach Medical Center has accepted a settlement agreement since this article appeared on January 6, 2009. How come no one - including our state and local elected officials or the governor are NOT asking questions about the conduct alleged in the lawsuit or the settlement agreement. Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Code to easy the burdens of the poor but honest debtor and to offer a fresh start free of the burdens of debt. Do some basic research and learn more about this lawsuit and then decide if LBMC deserves the protection of the Bankruptcy Code. According to an article on liherald.com, State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg says that the Long Beach Medical Center will file for bankruptcy as part of a plan to eliminate its debt, as merger talks with South Nassau Communities Hospital continue

‘SCAM’BUSTERS

By Carl CampanileJanuary 6, 2009 | 7:29am

Two hospital workers helped uncover an alleged Medicaid drug-treatment scam that prosecutors say has cheated taxpayers out of $50 million, The Post has learned.

The heroic whistleblowers in the fraud case – first reported in yesterday’s Post – are Enrico Montaperto, a former social worker involved in patient admissions at Parkway Hospital, and Dr. Mathew Gelfand, the director of Long Beach Medical Center’s outpatient methadone treatment.

EDITORIAL: TRULY SICKENING FRAUD

No criminal charges were filed against the seven New York hospitals named, but the state Attorney General’s Office and Brooklyn federal prosecutors have filed two suits alleging a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.

A spokesman for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo declined to comment on why his office didn’t file criminal charges, but authorities can collect triple the financial damages in civil cases and can also close a facility.

Montaperto alleged that medical personnel were not even involved in patients’ screening.

“The initial admitting assessments were conducted by nonmedical personnel by completing forms initially created and provided by SpecialCare,” he said in recently unsealed court papers.

SpecialCare Hospital Management Corp. is a national firm that had contracts to steer drug addicts to the hospitals, a practice that the state and the feds charge amounted to illegal kickbacks.

SpecialCare is a defendant in the case along with six hospitals: Downtown in Manhattan, Parkway in Queens, Long Beach Medical Center, St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers, Columbia Memorial in Hudson and Benedictine in Kingston.

North Shore Division of Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx – which was Our Lady of Mercy when it was allegedly involved – settled with prosecutors for $4.5 million and was removed as a defendant.

“Not only did said personnel have no medical training, but they had no formal education, licensing or certification in the field of alcohol and substance abuse,” Montaperto said.

He also claimed medical records were “fabricated or routinely exaggerated” to allow patients who were not hard-core addicts to meet admission requirements. Dr. Warren Licht, a supervisor of Downtown Hospital’s detox program, allegedly told officials the program opened to accommodate an increase in drug-addict admissions, when, in fact, the hospital was actually advertising to lure patients.

Gelfand suspected something was amiss because patients were not sent to outpatient clinics for subsequent treatment.

“The New Vision program is in fact a facade for a patient-referral scheme,” Gelfand said in court papers.

The hospitals and SpecialCare have all denied wrongdoing.

carl.campanile@nypost.com