Former Ortho Surgeon Steals Identity

This is a Greek tragedy.

When last we reported on ex-physician and former orthopedic surgeon Spyros Panos, he’d gone to prison after surrendering his medical license in New York over a 2013 health fraud conviction.

Panos Arrested

On April 10, 2018, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Panos had been arrested again after being charged with wire fraud, health care fraud, and aggravated identity theft, “in connection with a scheme in which he assumed the identity of a licensed orthopedic surgeon and obtained over $860,000 in payments for reviewing patient files in Workers Compensation cases.

You have to follow this closely.

According to the charges, Panos’ identity theft scam began before he went to jail in that first fraud case and resumed after his release from prison in October 2016. The victim of the identity theft knew Panos and had last spoken to him about one year ago.

Panos pled guilty in 2013 to stealing millions of dollars from health insurance companies by performing up to 20 surgeries per day. He was accused of performing unnecessary surgery on healthy patients and worse, performing fake surgeries.

In February 2018, a medical malpractice suit brought by 260 patients was settled for $45 million with Panos’s insurance carriers.

Panos was released from prison in late 2016 after reportedly serving less than three years of a 4-1/2-year sentence to a halfway house, then to home confinement in Hopewell Junction, New York. That’s when he went back to “work.”

Worker’s Comp Peer Review Company Formed

The government says that in December 2013 (after he pled guilty on October 31, 2013, and before he surrendered to serve his sentence on April 2, 2014) a company called Excel O LLC was formed. The registered agent for Excel was a Panos family member who was not a licensed physician.

According to the state Division of Corporations, Excel was registered by Manuel Freitas. In 1999, Panos married Maria Freitas, daughter of Manuel Freitas, a Park Avenue doorman.

The company offered peer-review services for Workers Comp Claims.

“An orthopedic surgeon purporting to be practicing medicine at ‘Excel Orthopedics’ performed peer reviews for several review companies. The same credentialing information for the Excel Doctor was submitted to five of the Review Companies, and they paid for the Excel Doctor’s peer review services by checks made out to Excel O LLC or Excel Orthopedics.”

Stolen Credentialing Information

Panos allegedly submitted the credentialing information of a licensed physician who is an orthopedic surgeon employed by a practice in Westchester County, New York, not Excel Orthopedics. That unidentified surgeon, according to the government, “did not submit his/her credentialing information to the review companies referred to above, did not conduct any peer reviews, did not authorize Panos or anyone else to use his/her credentialing information to conduct peer reviews, and did not receive any of the review company fees for services he/she was falsely represented to have performed.”

Between the time Excel was formed until three months after Panos surrendered to serve his sentence for the health care fraud charge, the government said checks totaling over $239,000 were issued by review companies and deposited into Excel.

Then, two months after Panos was released from prison, the government says a second Excel account was opened. Between December 2016 to October 2017, over $636,500 in checks issued by five review companies were deposited into the second account.

After the checks were deposited, the government alleges that funds were then transferred into a third Panos family account. Of those withdrawals, over $100,000 were transferred to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Surveillance videos, the government complaint states, show Panos and a family member at the credit union transferring money to the family account.

“Jaw-Dropping Hubris”

“Jaw-dropping hubris,” is how York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott reportedly described Panos’ actions. “The alleged actions … demonstrate the apparent lack of remorse and a clear disdain for making an honest living.”

Previous Panos Allegations

When we first reported on Panos in September 2013, lawyers representing 153 former Panos patients and plaintiffs in a lawsuit, told us that at least one-third of the firm’s cases involve patients who had been told by a second physician, after surgeries by Panos, that the procedures were not actually performed.

One of their clients, according to Panos’ surgical records, needed an acromioclavicular (AC) joint recession. Instead Panos allegedly performed a rotator cuff repair.

The lawyers also told us of a case where Panos claimed to have performed a full hip arthroplasty, when in fact, he had only performed a partial arthroplasty. Another former patient, died less than 24-hours after having an alleged “phantom” knee surgery.

The local paper reported on a lawsuit filed against Panos by a patient who said he never got better after two surgeries. He claims Panos didn’t actually operate on his knees and made him worse by improperly operating on his big toe.

The paper, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported that Panos was doing individual medical evaluations for Fiduciary Insurance Company of America and then was arrested in Maryland for allegedly shoplifting baseball cards from a local Wal-Mart.

From 2007 to 2011, the government said Panos received more than $7.5 million in compensation for his work at Mid-Hudson Medical Group.

He performed as many as 20 surgeries a day, routinely saw 60 patients a day and at times saw more than 90 patients a day. The medical practice submitted more than $35 million in health care claims for his work, from 2006 to 2011, and it received $13 million in payments.

“I am a Changed Man”

Panos might have needed the money.

According to published reports, in 2009 Panos invested $1.215 million in a real estate project that went into default after project managers were convicted of cooking the books. In a lawsuit against the developers, Panos claims he lost his entire investment.

After his guilty plea, the court ordered him to forfeit $5 million in ill-gotten gains. As of November 2017, he still reportedly owed $1.3 million.

Before he was sentenced to prison Panos acknowledged guilt and remorse in a five-page letter to U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Roman in which he took full responsibility for his crimes.

“I have learned from my mistakes and I am a changed man,” he told the judge. “I have been atoning for my sin for the past three years and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.”

“I did this out of greed and insecurity,” he wrote. “I wanted the practice to succeed because I was invested financially and emotionally in its success.”

He said his conduct ruined his career, caused him to lose the trust of many people, embarrassed his family and community and has created ripple effects that will last a lifetime.

“My inability to practice medicine,” Panos said, “has been devastating to me.”

Before joining the Mid-Hudson Medical Group, Panos was a fellow in sports medicine at the Human Performance and Sports Medicine Center of Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. He graduated City University and received his medical degree with honors from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

He was fired from the medical group in 2011 for not meeting the group’s “professional standards.”

Read the previous OTW story on Panos, here.

Current Charges

In the current case, Panos is being charged with three counts.

The first charges him with wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

The second count charges him with health care fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

The third count charges him with aggravated identity theft, which requires a two-year prison term to be served consecutive to a sentence imposed for the wire and health care fraud charges.