“Natural Health Counselor” Curbed
In 1991, the Illinois auditor general concluded that the state’s Department of Children and Family Services was improperly paying for services by Ina J. Organ, an unlicensed “natural health counselor” who prescribed herbal and homeopathic products for hyperactive children. Organ’s “credential”was obtained at a one-day session at the School of Natural Health in Utah, which trained distributors of products marketed by Nature’s Sunshine, Inc., a multilevel marketing company. Organ’s”diagnostic” methods included use of iridology, an Interro device, and a questionnaire that supposedly enabled her to spot Candida (yeast) infections. In 1993, Organ signed a consent judgment (shown below) ordering her to pay a $1,000 penalty, offer restitution to former clients, and refrain from (a) using an Interro device), (b) providing iridology, (c) making false representations …
Continue Reading >Lawsuits Halt Scheme to Bilk Insurance Companies for Unnecessary Testing
In April 2005, the Illinois Attorney General intervened in a private lawsuit to stop a scheme to conduct worthless and unnecessary electrodiagnostic testing while billing private insurers for more than $234 million for the services [1]. The attorney general’s complaint, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, named as defendants VeridianHealth LLC (a/k/a ZT Technical Services, Inc.), Veridian’s CEO and founder Mitchell Rubin, Veridian’s Chief Compliance Officer Lawrence Rubin, and neurologist Edward J. Herba, as well as a complex web of affiliated and related companies. The suit was originally filed in 2004 by private attorney Tracy Netzel on behalf of a whistleblower (chiropractic neurologist Scott Schichtl) under the state’s Insurance Claims Fraud Prevention Act. Netzel’s law firm specializes in qui tam (“whistleblower”) lawsuits The qui tam …
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