Medicaid claiming that a physician had performed a delivery when in fact there was no physician present at all and the delivery had been performed by a midwife or medical trainee.
           When the alleged fraud was halted, the Columbia University’s hasty press release announced that it was discontinuing the midwife deliveries because the population was “high risk.” One midwife was told, “…85% of the patients were at risk, and that we were no longer eligible to assist…in the delivery room.”  Prior to the exposure, the Hospital had deemed the same population, “low risk.”
      Beyond the alleged financial crime involved, what makes the scam so abhorrent is the fact that the delivery process is always fraught with multiple dangers. Midwives were delivering babies in a “high risk” minority population from September, 1990, through January, 2001, without the immediate on site availability of a fully trained attending obstetrician who could quickly deal with the serious emergency a difficult delivery presents for both mother and child.  

          The Allen Pavilion serves a predominantly minority (Dominican) population in upper Manhattan.  Absent any meaningful New York State regulation, the University felt they could get away with this scheme without detection. There has been no investigation of this decade long abuse to learn how many babies were damaged or how many mothers were injured by Columbia University’s alleged Medicaid fraud. (The reader will note we use the phrase “alleged fraud.”  Columbia University paid $5,100,000 in December 2002 to settle the allegations but did not confess guilt. Therefore, the University’s fraud is considered “alleged.”)
          The goal of this scheme was to maximize the University’s profit by submitting a
Click for Previous Page
Click for Next Page (10/31)
Click for Table of Contents