I want to make something perfectly clear: an indictment does not mean you are guilty. And U.S. medical law is very complex, a difficult road to navigate. It is also my personal belief that sometimes the medical community is held to higher standards than any other profession while payment for services is tightly regulated by insurance companies. Attorneys pay each other for referrals; physicians are barred from it. Drug companies cannot even give a doctor a pen for fear they will be “unduly influenced”. The government is using nukes in some cases where in others, those who have clearly abused raped the system have gone scot free.
But the law is the law, and there are greedy folks in every profession. Remember that when you learn that a federal grand jury has indicted 21 people — from Dallas to Costa Rica — related to the now-bankrupt Forest Park Medical Centers investigation of a $40 million kick back scheme. The group includes high profile doctors, surgeons and health care executives. The feds said Thursday they took part in a massive, four year illegal kickback scheme to drum up patients. What they allegedly did: since the Forest Park Hospitals (there were five) were physician-owned, they could not treat patients covered by any public health insurance plan (the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, which have notoriously low reimbursements) because they could not bill for them. Forest Park focused on treating patients with better-reimbursing private health care insurance. But they allegedly referred the public health patients to other doctors who then allegedly got a kick-back, which came in the form of sports tickets, diamonds, high end dining and even deals on medical office space and advertising! Talk about goosing the economy!
All very complex, but I’ll tell you what: some really great real estate may be on the horizon:
One of the physicians named in the indictment is minimally invasive spine surgeon Dr. Michael Rimlawi, and we have seen his house. Lots of parties there, too, including one for the Phantom Rolls. It’s that stunner with so many bars (and cars) on a prominent Preston Hollow corner. Right now, it appears Dr. Rimlawi is actually adding onto the 7258 square feet, which I hear is more garage space for his incredible car collection. Had it listed with Clay Stapp for $5,950,000 when we oooohed and ahhed over it and trust me, this place is worth ooohing and ahhing over. Forget the busy intersection: this home is an Italian oasis only one mile from Preston Center.
Then Dr. Wade Neal Barker, a bariatric surgeon, was actually one of the founders of the Forest Park concepts. He has a fabulous house at 3509 Euclid in Highland Park. It looks like Dr. B bought the place in 2010 when it was a 10,000 square foot 1970’s era sprawler on almost a half an acre. This house was torn down, and now the doc’s new place is valued by DCAD for $12,413,000 for a 16,000 square foot home he built in 2012. That tells me he’d put it on the market for $20 to $30 million.
Then Dr. Douglas Won owns a HUGE house on Inwood Road in Preston Hollow — built in 2011 by Simi Cooper, all behind a massive stone fence, more than 12,512 square feet on two whopping acres. Paid $1.5 for the dirt alone in 2010. This one is a real stunner and there is a huge pool, of course.
It’s time for a field trip! Stay tuned…
