Why Medicare Keeps Paying Sketchy Doctors

Eight years ago, California took away Dr. Gary Ordog’s right to bill the state’s Medicaid insurance program. A Santa Clarita physician who trained in emergency medicine and charged $975 an hour to testify as an expert witness in mold exposure lawsuits, Ordog had his license suspended for three months by the state medical board in 2006, according to court records. An administrative judge cited him for “gross negligence” and “acts of dishonesty or corruption” related to his court testimony. The judge found no evidence that Ordog’s activities physically harmed patients but wrote, “it is likely that financial harm to various parties did result.” Although Ordog’s license was reinstated after the suspension, he is still barred from serving as a witness in California or billing Medicaid.

That hasn’t stopped him from legally continuing to bill Medicare. The federal health insurance program for older Americans paid Ordog $538,742 in 2012. He is one of at least eight doctors whose medical licenses have been suspended or revoked who collectively billed more than $7 million that year, according to a trove of Medicare records the government released in April. Medicare approved payments to physicians who’d been disciplined for gross malpractice, battery, and violating prescription drug laws. Some had lost their licenses in their home states but were able to keep practicing by obtaining a license in another.