$902,000 For Screw Left In Spine: In August 2022, a Miami medical malpractice jury awarded a woman and her husband a combined $902,000 for a screw left in the woman’s spine following two spinal surgeries performed in Fort Lauderdale in 2015. The Florida medical malpractice jury awarded plaintiff Nancy Lazo $600,000 and her husband, David Labra, $302,000 for loss of consortium.
Defendant Dr. Kingsley Chin, an orthopedic surgeon who operated Less Institute Clinical (LES Clinic) that at the time of the surgeries was located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, performed two spinal cord surgeries on Nancy Lazo during which he left a metal screw in her spinal column following the first surgery. Lazo last saw Chin in January 2016. Within two weeks of her last visit with Chin, Lazo was experiencing numbness and pain in her left leg and foot. Lazo then saw Dr. Samuel Popinchalk at the University of Miami, who stated, “I remember seeing her, and I remember her being in a lot of pain when I first saw her, and I remember being surprised when I saw the imaging. That first visit, when I reviewed the imaging I saw a screw that was malpositioned.” The screw was surgically removed, after which Lazo experienced full resolution of her symptoms.
Dr. Chin reportedly was the target of an administrative complaint filed by the Florida Department of Health regarding a spinal surgery he performed on a 73-year-old man after which the patient had weakness in his upper extremities and an inability to move or feel any sensation in his lower extremities. Chin reportedly diagnosed the patient as suffering from spinal shock, after which Chin discharged the man to a senior citizen center instead of sending him to a hospital. In 2021, Chin was fined $8,000 plus $5,041 in investigative costs; ordered to take five hours of continuing medical education classes in spinal surgery; five hours in risk management; two hours in post-operative surgical management; and had a letter of concern issued as a result of the 2019 surgery on the man at Palmetto Lakes Surgical Center.
In March 2020, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a civil health care fraud complaint against SpineFrontier, Inc. (SpineFrontier); Impartial Medical Experts, LLC (IME); Kingsley Chin, the founder and CEO of SpineFrontier; Aditya Humad, the CFO of SpineFrontier; Vanessa Dudley, Chin’s wife and the Business Administrator of IME; and other entities Chin owns and controls. The government alleged that SpineFrontier, based in Malden, Mass., and the other defendants paid, and conspired to pay, kickbacks in the form of sham consulting fees via a sham third-party, IME. The lawsuit alleged that the defendants made these payments to surgeons to induce them to use SpineFrontier’s devices in spinal surgeries. The government contended that the defendants violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, and as a result caused federal health care programs to pay millions of dollars in false claims. In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office settled civil health care fraud claims against five physicians, each of whom admitted to seeking and obtaining kickbacks from SpineFrontier, via the sham third-party IME, for consulting work he did not perform. Further, each physician admitted that one or more of SpineFrontier, Chin, or Humad specifically instructed him to bill “consulting” hours to SpineFrontier for each and every surgery in which he used a SpineFrontier device, regardless of whether he spent any time actually consulting.
On September 7, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that Kingsley R. Chin, MD, 57, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the CEO and founder of SpineFrontier; Aditya Humad, 36, of Cambridge, Mass., the company’s CFO; and SpineFrontier, Inc., were indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, six counts of violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
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