Physician Seeking to Buy Endoscopy Center

Las Vegas, NVA physician by the name of Dr. Rudy Manthei who is the top health care advisor to Nevada's governor, owner of Seven Hills Surgery center, and Nevada Eye & Ear's founder; is considering the purchase of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and another clinic that is owned by Dr. Dipak Desai.

If Manthei decides to go through with the purchase of the two clinics, he would encourage the doctors who worked for Desai to practice at both locations. This has been met with disdain by one physician named Dr. Julian Lopez, who feels that the doctors employed at the clinics should not be allowed to practice medicine again. He feels that, because of the hepatitis outbreaks from these two clinics, patients are running scared and do not know who to trust anymore. He alleges that all of the doctors working for the clinics knew what was going on because they would boast about how many procedures they were able to do and how they were compensated for these procedures.

Dr. Manthei feels differently about employing the same physicians. He believes that the physicians are needed because the area had 25,000 procedures completed in 2007 and feels that the number will be mirrored in 2008. He feels the need for the clinics outweighs the desire to get rid of them. But Dr. Frank Nemic, a gastroenterologist says that manpower is really the issue at hand.

It has been said by past patients of the clinics that they were herded through the entire process like cattle. Manthei says that, although he wishes to buy the clinics and employ the same doctors that does not mean that he agrees with the way things were run in Desai's clinics. But he does contend that all the procedures performed in the clinics were necessary.

However, a former physician who practiced with the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada has said that it was routine for unnecessary biopsies to be performed in an effort to run up the charges on a patient's bill.

At the beginning of March 2008, there were approximately 40,000 letters sent to former patients of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada that urged them to be tested for hepatitis C since there have been six acute cases that were traced back to the clinic. The seventh case was found to be linked to the Desert Shadow sister clinic.

Health care authorities have said that the single dose vials and the syringes were reused and now there are 14 physicians within Desai's practice that remain under investigation. All physicians have agreed not to practice until the completion of the investigation.

As for Manthei's purchase of the clinics, he said he will know what he is going to do the third week of April. He said that it was Desai and his partners that turned to him to consider this deal. Manthei says he does not want people to be afraid of surgical centers because of the fact that many cancers are found in screenings and these people need the assistance.

By: Ginger Gillenwater