How Whistle-Blowing is becoming a Weapon to Hurt Companies and their Executives!

Case in point take, Orthopedic Spine Surgeon and Inventor Dr Kingsley Chin who is facing extreme public scrutiny with recent Department of Justice case. Dr. Kingsley Chin was the founder and former CEO of Spinefrontier Inc. that designed, developed and manufactured FDA cleared devices for minimally invasive spine surgery. Three disgruntled former employees became whistle-blowers which resulted in Federal allegations that Spinefrontier made fraudulent payments to surgeon consultants. Dr. Chin and the CFO were indicted on charges of bribery and money laundering and were arrested.  Several of the surgeon consultants previously made admissions and paid fines in the millions.

I raise the questions:

Was this driven by the sense that this will be easy money?

Were these employees driven by race being white males and Dr. Chin a successful black male?

Was this driven by the fact that they were fired by the company?

At this point, no one knows,

Most medical devices are invented by large cooperations. They rely on consulting agreements from key opinion-leading surgeons who are experts in the field. These surgeons are sought after by many companies for their expertise which brings them prestige and a source of income.

It is very difficult for a company and a surgeon consultant to document every second of consulting time they get paid for and this opens a window for a whistle-blower to claim that there is sham consulting. In the case against Spinefrontier, there is a possibility that one whistle-blower joined the company for two months to file a whistle-blower claim for the award to be gained.

It would be prudent for companies and their executives to invest in a robust compliance program and an in-house general counsel.

Authors

Dr. Jason A. Seale is a medical doctorpreneur. He holds a master’s in business administration degree