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According to the U.S. government and CMS, a FOIA ( Information Request)   on Dr. SHANG uncovered a mound of highly precise CMS provided, Medicare coding and billing data that unequivocally demonstrated that the ophthalmologist was directly transmitting terrible eye infections to previously otherwise well or stable  eye patients.  

 

SHANG profited to the tune of about $20,000 just  from the eye infection outbreaks by an exponential increase in the number of follow up visits, complications, and billable surgical procedures required to fix the damage from the  infections. The data confirm the financial reward of propagating eye infections among the Medicare beneficiaries whom were unsuspecting of the cause of their perils.

 

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For example, as identified by CMS certified billing data with payment fees,  patient A came in on Feb 1st for a simple code of glaucoma CPT 366.16. The patient had no infection and was stable before seeing Shang.

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Then on Feb 11th (precisely 10 days later)  the same patient A came back to the same eye doctor with a NEW diagnosis of  ICD code 372.02 which was "acute follicular conjunctivitis", also known commonly as viral conjunctivitis. The virus Shang was passing around has a 7-14 day average incubation.

 

Then 3-4 weeks later, the same patient A came back with complications of EKC, a new complication, a diagnosis of Squamous Blepharitis and Tear Film Insufficiency following acute eye infection.

 

Then even 8 months later, patient A came back with more complications from the infection and generated additional revenue for the ophthalmologist.

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According to the U.S. Government, the CMS FOIA showed that Dr. Shang had patients who first became infected with viral eye infections  in her office as early as February 1, 2011 which was the first date of this FOIA request. As of June 2012, the coding data Dr. Shang was still having EKC infections in her office.

 

Disturbingly, the FOIA records show that this same clinical infections scenario occurred over and over and over in roughly a documented 34 patients in just a 16 month FOIA request of this one ophthalmologist. However, Dr. Shang did not change her conduct or practice pattern. 

 

As a result, numerous innocent patient seeing Shang for well annual visits, and even more family members all became infected with the same virus Shang had going around.

 

Shang's CMS data show Shang saw 2 patients with the same exact eye infection diagnosis on August 17, 2011.

The on that same day, Shang infected several patients including a couple of husband and wives with the same viruses.

 

However, while according to public billing documents Shang was billing Medicare and receiving payment for these infections, Shang denied having any of these eye infections  in her office in court documents and her sworn testimony to the Superior Court.

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Shang provided deceiving testimony to the Medical Board of California and denied her office infection outbreaks. Shang also made similar gross misrepresentations to multiple government agencies including the OC Health Department

 

 

Furthermore, this FOIA was only for MEDICARE data and did not include any other insurances and self pay patient data. 

 

Moreover, the data did not account for an estimated 30- 40% of patients who naturally became suspicious,  did not physically return to Shang's office after contracting the eye infections and went to new eye  doctors and emergency rooms.

 

A fair number of the patients infected at Shang's also called  her office and were diagnosed by phone with the eye infection and phoned in prescriptions, or referred to other doctors by Shang.

 

Therefore, those additional infected  patients were not "coded" as a chargeable CMS visits and therefore that data was not captured. 

 

The simple extrapolation of data of a practice demographic of some 20-25% Medicare, would reflect somewhere on the order of more than 80-90 patients whom became infected or were seen with the infection at this eye practice or through family that were seen at Shang's.  

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