A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:
CHICAGO AREA SURGEON SENTENCED TO 10 MONTHS IN CUSTODY FOR MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS ABOUT SERVICES AND MEDICARE BENEFITS
CHICAGO — A Chicago area vascular and thoracic surgeon was sentenced today to 10 months in federal custody after being convicted at trial of making false statements in post-operation reports relating to health care services and Medicare benefits.
The defendant, DR. JOHN NATALE, was found guilty following a week-long trial in May of two counts of making false statements by a jury that also acquitted him of two counts of health care fraud and one count of mail fraud for allegedly defrauding Medicare.
Natale, 63, of South Barrington, was ordered to begin serving his sentence on Nov. 1by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, who also imposed a fine of $40,000 and periods of community service during one year of supervised release after incarceration.
“The goal here was to collect more than he [Natale] otherwise would have been entitled,” Judge Pallmeyer said in determining that there was an intended loss to Medicare of at least $10,000.
Natale faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a federal sentencing guideline range of 15 to 21 months after Judge Pallmeyer also found that Natale had obstructed justice while testifying in his own behalf at trial.
Natale specialized in repairing abdominal aortic aneurysms, which is a weakening of the artery, and the trial focused on six surgeries he performed in 2003 and 2004 on patients at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.
Natale later operated at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, according to his trial testimony.
Northwest Community Hospital medical officials, who also testified at trial, cooperated with the government’s investigation.
The evidence at trial showed, and the jury found, that for at least two patients in 2004, Natale prepared false post-operation reports that, among other things, contained extensive details about aneurysm repairs that he never performed, and falsely described the surgeries he did perform as being more complex and elaborate than they actually were.
In the case of one patient whose medical condition deteriorated a year after Natale operated, another surgeon testified that he had to untangle the falsehoods in Natale’s records, which, if relied upon, would have had a serious impact on his subsequent treatment of that patient.
The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu.
The sentence was announced by Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Lamont Pugh III, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Region of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General; and Thomas P. Brady, Inspector-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
The investigation was conducted by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which expanded to Chicago in 2011, and is part of the Health Care Fraud Prevention & Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), a joint initiative between the Justice Department and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce anti-fraud laws around the country.
This is truly a injustice unlike any other.
This great Doctor who saved each of these patients, and was even accredited by the judge of saving these peoples lives is put in prision because the government nor the nitt witt Dr. Thomas Painter cant understand the Rush Technique.
Dr. Natale was clear in 2007 by all charges by a panel of three doctors for the state of Illinois.
This strike force HEAT is nothing more than a tyranical government showing the people we got a successful doctor.
Shame on you Judge Pallamayer, Eric Holder, Dr. Painter, Bruce Crowthers, and Northwest Community Hospital Board!
Dr. Natale provided publi aid care and received over 200 letters of support.
Now they suffer.
I’m ashamed today to call myself a American.
Dr Natale was cleared of Medicare fraud. He was Found NOT GUILTY by a jury of those charges…The government wanted a lynching of a successful high profile talented Cardio Thoracic Vascular surgeon and regardless of the NOT GUILTY verdict on fraud…say he lied and sentenced him to prison anyway.
This is the most heinous unjust prosecution …done only to terrorize other docs that the government can do whatever they want… to whomever they want…Try disobeying Obamacare docs…Get in line…
Where were pertinent facts about the CMO , the Chief Medical Officer of Northwest hospital…who made the MEDICAL calls to operate on a woman against Dr Natales judgement …Dr Smith, the CHief Medical Officer…a man who called himself Doctor…was in fact a man who had NO MEDICAL LICENSE…NO MEDICAL LICENSE not since 1999… Was making those medical calls
That is STUNNING! And then to cover his mistakes and his lack of a medical license …he then went to the government with Dr Painter to destroy a mans career and life….because Smith and Painter had made medical decisions that were unethical at best and terminal…
Dr Leighton Smith ordered surgery on a patient of Dr Natales’ against Dr Natale’s advice and judgement…Smith then sent another economic competitor of Dr Natale’s in to operate on the woman…twice…one day after the other….hoping to prove Dr Natale had not done the surgery he said he had done a year earlier…when Dr Natale had saved the woman from a serious anyeurism surgery where she almost bled out. Dr Natale did save her and did put the patch on the aneurysm exactly as he said he had done….
Dr Painter and Dr Smith wanted to prove Dr Natale wrong…but in their quest to prove Dr Natale wrong…they not only proved Dr Natale right (the woman did not need surgery and she did have a patched aneurysm from the previous year )… Dr Painter at Dr Leighton Smith’s direction to operate and also to take pictures inside the woman….cost that woman her life. How awful. How irresponsible …How final
The government is wrong here…terribly wrong. The Drs. Painter and Smith (Smith, who has now been fired from Northwest Hospital) and Bruce Crowthers the man who hired him the CEO of Northwest Hospital are evil men who should be investigated.
This is not only a tragedy but a miscarriage of justice….God help us when this is what our government does… going through 7000 surgeries and finding nothing but in two…that it turned out they were not correct about those two either…
How very wrong
It is sad to see Dr Painter described as above. He was quite simply a witness to the patient described in this trial
The Feds made a limited case over very few allegations. They did not want to pile on, just get a conviction.
Point of fact there are many more acts for which Dr Natale could have been charged. Based on all of the criminal acts he ACTUALLY did, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars he defrauded, this is a slap On the wrist.
your wrong “n other guy.”
the government actually spent eight years and millions of dollars on this investigation only to come up with SIX cases out of the 7,000 they investigated in his 35 years career with an estimated total amount of “fraud” totaling..get ready..10,000 dollars.
no prosector limits their case because they don’t want to pile on a conviction – especially when you have as measly of a case as this one.
come on!
he was acquitted of medical fraud and the only reason he was found guilty of two false statements is because the truth was hid from the jury.
dr. painter was not “simply a witness” to the patient.
he is the one responsible for starting all of this bs.
he is a vengeful, jealous and inadequate surgeon and dr. natale is not the first doctor he has done this to.
get your facts straight.
Mike: if you are ashamed to be and American…. Leave.
Nada: Who else has Dr. Painter “done this to?” Got any “facts” there?
Natale was aquited only because there were not 12 doctors in that jury box who could understand the medicine. It was probably lost on a lay jury
Guilty as charged and lucky to have such a light sentance. Crooks like this give the rest of the decent doctors in the world a black eye.
His medical liscence ought to go next
South barringotn doctor did not receive 10 months for medicare fraud, he was convicted of “false statements” which if the statute stands the government will be able to indite this author cal skinner of a federal crime, change the title.
Cal,
PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING PRESS RELEASED BY AAPPS REGARDING THIS CASE: http://news.yahoo.com/misstatement-operative-report-not-crime-doctors-group-tells-145500156.html
There are always two sides to every story and unfortunately for you all you know how to do is regurgitate Government press releases. The Department of Justice has clearly decided to declare War among all medical professionals. The Federal prosecutors pursued this doctor even after Dr. John Natale was cleared in 2005 of all charges by the State of Illinois. This nationally recognized Cardio Thoracic-Vascular Surgeon and was cleared by an ethics board consisting of three doctors who found him innocent of any malfeasance.
Medical peers consider Dr. John Natale to be one of the top Cardio-thoracic and Vascular surgeons within the entire State of Illinois, some would even argue within the entire United States of America. Dr. John Natale graduated from Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, completed his Masters at University of Illinois Chicago while completing his residency at Rush Presbyterian Hospital in the late 70’s studying under the pioneers at the time for cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. These highly famous and accredited doctors were Dr. Sam Dye, Dr. Cryus Serry, Dr. Marshal Golden, Dr. Hussan Najafi, Dr. Ormand Julian, Dr. Hushang Javid, and Dr. James Hunter. Dr. Cryus Serry testified on behalf of Dr. Natale’s incredible skill and the specifics regarding the procedures performed during the six operations reviewed in this trial. Dr. Cyrus Serry also credited Dr. Natale as being one of the few surgeons within the country who could have saved the lives of these six patients.
Please read the following articles written by Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor of the AAPS on Peer Sham Review. This is a nationally known expert on sham peer review. Tactics Characteristic of Sham Peer Review: http://www.jpands.org/vol14no3/huntoon.pdf
* Dr. John Natale Has performed over 7,500 elective – cardiac-thoracic and vascular procedures with no deaths reported at the operating table to this date. All of his patients went back to their family’s healthy with improved health.
* Dr. John Natale has never been sued by any of his patients – unusual in a litigious society (Especially the State of Illinois)
* Dr. John Natale has never been audited by Medicare, nor reprimanded by any state medical society or professional medical society.
*Dr. John Natale had saved all six patient lives of the governments investigation was originally accused of performing ghost surgery and making these operations more complex than he actually needed too. It was brought to light during the trial that four of the patients experienced ruptured aneurisms and two of them had significant co-morbidities.
* Dr. John Natale in 32 years of private Practice never turned one patient over to a collection agency.
* Dr. John Natale has won three national awards of excellence in cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery.
* Dr. John Natale has traveled to Diamonhead, Mississsippi to assist and aid the victims of KATRINA and also traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haitia to help Project Medishare vision of providing medical needs to one of the poorest country’s within the free world.
PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING PRESS RELEASE FROM THE AAPPS REGARDING THIS CASE: http://news.yahoo.com/misstatement-operative-report-not-crime-doctors-group-tells-145500156.html
Where is the story about Dr. Painter…and Dr. Leighton Smith…the incompetent docs who drove this injustice….Painter, a substandard surgeon operated on Dr. Natalie’s patient…opening Ms. Mariner to take pictures of her to prove Dr. Natale did not do the surgery he said he did…at the direction of Dr. Leighton Smith the chief medical director who made the medical decision to operate and to take pictures for pete’s sake to prove Dr Natale wrong….only it didn’t go as planned as these two criminally corrupt complicit Docs planned…two major surgeries in two days on this elderly woman Doc Natale had saved one year previously… in a heroic surgery another like Painter could not have performed…nor were trained to perform ….on a woman where her a large large aneurysm burst going into surgery where she had lost over half her blood volume and Dr. Natale saved her life…Of Note: Dr. Natale has never, not once, lost a patient on the operating table…..and that must really get Dr Painter’s inadequate goat ….
Dr Leighton Smith made a medical decision without a medical license …a very very bad, and very deadly medical opinion..which should have resulted in a massive malpractice suit against Dr. Leigton Smith, Dr. Painter, Bruce Crowthers for lying about Leighton Smith having a medical license, and Northwest Hospital who covered the fact do no medical license until after Dr. Natale was convicted and then promptly relieved Dr Leighton Smith….and considering Painters new mess, wish we had been fired too…
read Keith Heibesons comments of Robert Clifford and assoc comments to same in Crains….”If Crowthers thinks its not important to have a medical license making medical decisions, the only hospital in Illinois to do so…then wait until he has a malpractice suit” …Smith Painter and Crowthers knew this…which is exactly why they shopped charges against Natale at the US Attorney Patrick Fitgerald’s office!!!!! And when the USA couldn’t get an expert witness ..Painter then supplied his less than stellar medical school buddy to be the expert for the US Attorney’s suit…. Corruption, stink, heinous…you want fairness, you want justice, you want doctors not corralled and managed by threats under Obmamacare…than stand up and yell fowl…because the only doctors who belong in prison on this case…are Leighton Smith, and Painter and the corrupt money man Bruce Crowthers…
this entire chapter is PUKEWORTHY…God help us when this corruption is allowed to stand to use a seven year old case to manage Doctors and their response to Obamacare…Stand up and speak..while you’re still allowed to….
A nother Guy,
Yeah I think the US justice system is totally broke!
This was a good doctor and they took 8 years of going through everything he had.
He was cleared by three doctors by the State Ethic board on these same charges.
This was passed along to the Fed´s and they looked it over for years and waited.
You asked for an example of Dr. Painter doing this to other doctors.
Google: TUNCA v. PAINTER