The late Dr. George Tiller performed abortions up through the third trimester. His death was tragic, and he has been hailed a hero by many pro-choicers. However, he was implicated in the death of at least one woman.
In 1993, an employee of his, Tracy Jones, sued him. She is quoted here:
“There were no ‘training manuals’ for new employees, and there was no time (or instructions from Dr. Tiller) to develop them. Basically it was a ‘sink or swim’ situation for new front office employees. We did have a cursory telephone answering procedure sheet to follow, but generally a new employee received on-the-job training by all of the front office employees. Further, front office employees wre routinely called back to the medical area to assist medical employees with direct patient care without receiving any training in this area.” Included “washing surgical instruments and wrapping them for autoclave, operating the sonogram during surgery, explaining aftercare instructions to patients, and preparing specimins”
….
“Dr. Tiller paid ‘kick-backs’ to certain individuals who referred patients to him: [I.S.] in New York; [C.F.] in Tulsa, Oklahoma and [C.K.] in Atlanta, Georgia… Dr. Tiller required me to account for these payments (other than [I.S.], who he paid in cash) as ‘Other Advertising’ on the books.”
….
“Dr. Tiller instructed me to routinely overbill Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas. For example, we billed BC/BS $786 for a first trimester procedure, while patients actually paid only $225 or $330. Dr. Tiller advised me that he ‘pioneered’ this billing procedure, and that other clinics across the country were doing it as well. The way it worked was that $786 was booked as the actual procedure fee, the patient paid either $225 or $330, and the remainder ($561 or $456) was written off in the ‘adjustments’ column. When patients questioned this, we advised that $786 was the actual cost of our service, but that in order to remain competitive we took a loss, or a write-off, to keep our prices low.”
Sorce:
Source: US District Court of Kansas Case No. 94-1138-MLB
provided by Christina Dunigan
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