Source: The American Prospect
by Maureen Tkacik
“About three years ago, a UnitedHealth medical director for utilization management (we’ll call him KW) began to suspect that a popular spine surgeon was misrepresenting patient MRIs to make the case that they needed unnecessary spinal fusion surgery …. Specifically, KW, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, believed the surgeon was misdiagnosing degenerative disc disease as spondylolisthesis, the much rarer condition believed to have afflicted Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old engineer accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson following a long phase of societal withdrawal, triggered by a flare-up of his unbearable back pain. But when KW brought up the topic in a one-on-one peer review consultation in early 2022, the surgeon grew combative. If UnitedHealth did not approve spinal fusion surgery and forced him to perform a routine discectomy, the surgeon promised he would intentionally botch the discectomy, ultimately causing the patient to require spinal fusion anyway.” (12/13/24)
https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-13-final-boss-of-our-medical-misery/