St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
April 4, 1987
Three doctors get reprimands from state
By Carol Gentry
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Psychiatrist Luis Byrne
Ruiz was accused of submitting bills to Medicaid for patient visits he didn’t make. After Medicaid caught the discrepancy, Ruiz was sent through a pretrial intervention program rather than prosecuted in court, according to DPR records.
Ruiz’s attorney, James Alfonso of Tampa, said Ruiz’s secretary mistakenly billed for visits to St. Joseph’s Hospital for 2 1/2 years after Ruiz stopped making Sunday rounds. Ruiz didn’t catch the error because the secretary used a rubber stamp with his signature on all the claims forms, Alfonso said.
He pointed out that as soon as Ruiz heard there was a billing problem, he audited his books and came up with overpayments from Medicare and private insurance companies, as well. Ruiz has paid
$ 47,000 in restitution and fines, Alfonso said.
Some board members showed sympathy for a doctor who sinks in what one called the “quagmire” of paperwork. Others were suspicious, and one called the billing errors “out-and-out fraud.”
The board imposed a reprimand and a $ 1,000 fine, and ordered Ruiz to throw away his rubber stamp.
In the Byrne case, DPR records show, two narcotics addicts duped the psychiatrist into giving them prescriptions for Dilaudid, a painkiller related to morphine. Byrne didn’t know the two were addicts nor that he needed a federal license to run a detoxification program, according to his attorney, Michael Kinney of Tampa.
The board imposed one year of probation, during which Byrne may not prescribe any narcotic drugs; a $ 1,000 fine; a reprimand, and 30 hours of medical courses about drugs.
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