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Im trying to understand this article can someone briefly explain to me in simple terms
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Doctor accused of taking kickbacks to prescribe anti-psychotic drug
November 15, 2012|Staff report
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A federal lawsuit accuses a Chicago psychiatrist of getting illegal kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and submitting at least 140,000 false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for anti-psychotic medications he prescribed for thousands of mentally ill patients in nursing homes.
Dr. Michael J. Reinstein also submitted at least 50,000 claims to Medicare and Medicaid falsely claiming he had provided “pharmacologic management” for his patients at more than 30 area nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to the health care fraud lawsuit filed by the U.S. attorney’s office.
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“This is the largest civil case alleging prescription medication fraud against an individual ever brought in Chicago,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro.
Reinstein was the subject of an investigation by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune in 2009 that found Reinstein, 69, had compiled a worrisome record of providing assembly-line care with a highly risky drug.
Searching publicly available documents, reporters discovered that Reinstein had been accused of overmedicating his mentally ill patients. His unusually heavy reliance on the drug clozapine — a potent psychotropic medication that carries five “black box” warnings — has been linked to at least three deaths.
In 2007 he prescribed various medications to 4,141 Medicaid patients, including more prescriptions for clozapine than were written by all the doctors in Texas put together, Medicaid records show. Records also showed he was getting government reimbursement for seeing an improbably large number of patients.
Reinstein has provided psychiatric medical services in the Chicago area since 1973. Since at least 1999, he has maintained an office in the Uptown neighborhood, which prosecutors said has the densest concentration of mentally ill nursing home residents in Illinois.
According to the federal lawsuit, Reinstein routinely prescribed anti-psychotic and other psychiatric medications to his patients based, not on their need but on his receipt of kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.
Reinstein routinely prescribed Clozaril, the trade name for clozapine manufactured by Novartis, and he often had more than 1,000 patients using the medication at any given time, the lawsuit state. For many years, Novartis paid Reinstein to promote Clozaril, it alleges.
After Novartis’ patent for Clozaril expired in 1998, Reinstein resisted pharmacy and drug company efforts to switch his patients to generic clozapine and he continued to be the largest prescriber of Clozaril to Medicaid recipients in the United States, the lawsuit states.
In July 2003, Novartis notified Reinstein that it would be withdrawing its support for Clozaril, and ended the regular payments that it had been making to Reinstein.
In August 2003, the lawsuit says Reinstein offered to switch his patients to generic clozapine manufactured by Ivax Pharmaceuticals if the company met several conditions: Agree to pay Reinstein $50,000 under a one-year “consulting agreement”; pay his nurse to speak on behalf of clozapine; and fund a clozapine research study by a Reinstein-affiliated entity known as Uptown Research Institute.

My mom is a nurse and has known a pediatrician in the area for years. We tried to take my son there and they made us wait for 3-4 hrs because they had alot of Medicaid patients. We have private insurance & do not like to wait that long with a sick child (can you blame us?). They had people out in the hall laying out there, kids eating in the lobby, kids stepping all over us, so we left. His real pediatrician (and mine as a kid) retired after over 50 yrs of excellent care.
We decided to try what I would call a “yuppy” pediatricians office. They do not even to go the hospital we are affiliated with (my mom works for and my 2nd child will also be born at in early 2013). I filled out alot of paperwork and casually asked the tech on the phone if they took Medicaid. She said no, only private insurance and I said ok good b/c that last one who we went to said they did and there was a long hold up.
I didnt say a word in the office about it I dont think and that pediatrician he saw called me up personally and balled me out about why I asked that question, I was basically in the wrong and they will take it forever and they have to help low income people. The lady said they don’t take it. He told me if I didn’t like it then its not a good fit. We are planning on finding another Dr that isn’t so confrontational about trivial questions . I understand him wondering why I asked that. My mom knows a lot about Medicaid and we just wanted a better clinic than that other one that’s why I asked. Should he have been that nasty and harsh with me and should those girls have played telephone about it? They might not even care that we are leaving.