{"id":2478,"date":"2013-07-27T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2013-07-29T11:56:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T15:56:04","slug":"orthopaedic-doctor-penalty-overturne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/orthopaedic-doctor-penalty-overturne\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec Court Overturns Orthopaedic Doctor\u2019s Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do orthopaedic doctors have the right to accept discounts from companies who supply materials to their patients?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a July 2 decision of the Centre de sant\u00e9 et de service sociaux de Laval<\/i> versus Tadros, the Quebec Superior Court counselled strongly against Johnson & Johnson\u2019s habit of paying orthopaedic surgeons a 2% discount on prosthetic hips and knees they use for their patients.<\/p>\n

The court also rejected the CSSS Laval\u2019s right to force Ch\u00e9rif Tadros to pay $30,000 for his role in the scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I won the case against the CSSS Laval,\u201d wrote Dr. Tadros in an email. \u201cI really don’t plan to do anything special. I have an active practice and am happy to put all this behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Tadros might be happy to put the case behind him, but key concerns about the funding of Quebec hospitals by major suppliers remain.<\/p>\n

This particular case dates from 2000 until 2006 when Johnson & Johnson wrote cheques worth a total of $594,928 to an organization called the \u201cOrthopaedic Foundation of Laval\u201d ostensibly to be used for the training of orthopaedic staff at the Cit\u00e9 de la Sant\u00e9. The Foundation consisted of a CIBC bank account set up by several orthopaedic surgeons at the hospital. As head of orthopaedics and then head of surgery at the hospital, Tadros had signing authority over the account. For years, he used it to pay for department expenses, including restaurant meals, replacement staff, Christmas wine bottles, conference and training course fees for various surgeons, office equipment and other such items.<\/p>\n

On November 15, 2006, other surgeons at the hospital requested that Tadros resign, saying that they had a lack of confidence in his leadership. According to evidence at the trial, they thought there should be more money in their training account than there actually was, but no evidence of misuse of funds by Tadros was presented.<\/p>\n

Tadros quit the next day. He now works at a medical clinic on Rockland in Montreal.<\/p>\n

A year later, the CSSS Laval integrated 2% surgeon incentive discounts into a three-year contract they signed with Johnson & Johnson.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the disciplinary council of the Quebec College of Physicians began investigating Tadros. On October 1, 2009, it fined him $30,000 and banned him from practising for three months for participating in a kickback system. No other surgeons whose training was paid for out of the account were punished.<\/p>\n

In his July 2 opinion, Quebec Superior Court Justice Louis J. Gouin rejected the obligation that Tadros pay this fee. He wrote \u201cit\u2019s clear that if the funds hadn\u2019t been available for the use of the orthopaedic \u00a0service and it\u2019s doctors, with the precise goal to encourage them to regularly use Johnson & Johnson prostheses, these funds would simply have not been provided by Johnson & Johnson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Gouin criticized Johnson & Johnson for putting in place a discount system without negotiating directly with the appropriate authorities, as was done in their agreement to supply sutures.<\/p>\n

He condemned Tadros for choosing to participate in a discount scheme that contravened his medical code of ethics and for sloppy book-keeping.<\/p>\n

Lastly, he critiqued the CSSS Laval for taking a laissez-faire attitude to the situation as long as their surgeons were happy and the hospital met annual quotas set by the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n

Justice Gouin wrote that \u201cthe actions of all the parties involved in this case were reprehensible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do orthopaedic doctors have the right to accept discounts from companies who supply materials to their patients? In a July 2 decision of the Centre de sant\u00e9 et de service sociaux de Laval versus Tadros, the Quebec Superior Court counselled strongly against Johnson & Johnson\u2019s habit of paying orthopaedic surgeons a 2% discount on prosthetic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2buQs-DY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2473,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/csss-laval-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":2478,"position":0},"title":"CSSS Laval Launches New Expertise Guide","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"July 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever since Laval\u2019s health and social services organization (CSSS Laval) launched a new guide to their services last month, they've been getting more requests to collaborate with local community groups. \u201cPeople seem to understand better how they can work with us,\u201d said Chantal Goyette, acting head of CSSS\u2019s clinical projects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hundred Mile Circle"","block_context":{"text":"Hundred Mile Circle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/hundredmilecircle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1351,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/slipped-on-the-ice\/","url_meta":{"origin":2478,"position":1},"title":"City of Laval Ordered to Pay Resident Who Slipped on the Ice","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"December 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It took almost three years, but Jocelyne Courval finally proved that the City of Laval\u2019s negligent snow-clearing contributed to her fall three years ago, when she broke her ankle. A judge from the Quebec Superior Court ordered the city to write Courval a cheque for $45,651.54 as of December 6.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hundred Mile Circle"","block_context":{"text":"Hundred Mile Circle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/hundredmilecircle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17612,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/april-26-suburban\/","url_meta":{"origin":2478,"position":2},"title":"In the April 26 issue of the Suburban","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"May 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I have more stories than usual in last week's Suburban. Most of my stories are in the West Island and Laval issues. I'm particularly impressed with the first one about the event Wednesday night. 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