Health service director battled watchdog
Most of the doctors found to be ripping off Medicare are never identified publicly, writes Natasha Wallace.
FOR seven years, the former eastern suburbs doctor Lynette Bellamy quietly battled the Medicare watchdog over allegations of inappropriate practice, including poor medical record-keeping. Meanwhile, she rose through the Health Department ranks to an executive role overseeing initiatives to improve patient care in hospitals.
Just seven months after the Medicare watchdog, the Professional Services Review, found in April 2005 that Dr Bellamy had engaged in inappropriate practice in 83 per cent of 34 consultations audited, she was hired as a senior medical adviser for the Health Department's Clinical Excellence Commission, where she analysed reports on avoidable patient deaths.
In January 2008, she was appointed the director of clinical governance for the Sydney South West Area Health Service, which covers 1.3 million people from Balmain to Bowral.
Nine months later, the watchdog again found Dr Bellamy, known at the Health Department by her middle name of Maree, had engaged in inappropriate practice after it re-investigated the same 34 consultations at her former Edgecliff practice.
The Professional Services Review had been ordered by the Federal Court to re-examine the consultations after Dr Bellamy successfully appealed its finding that she had inappropriately claimed for too many long consultations in 2000 and 2001.
The watchdog concluded in October 2008 that Dr Bellamy failed to complete adequate medical records for each of the 34 services.
She was also found to have not provided an appropriate level of clinical input into 33 of the 34 services, did not meet the time requirements for 26 of the services and unnecessarily initiated pathology services on 27 occasions.
She was reprimanded last year and ordered to repay $1098.20, the amount of Medicare benefits she received for consultations which were inappropriately billed as long.
Dr Bellamy is one of dozens of doctors caught ripping off Medicare, some of whom may be risking the lives of their patients by ordering inappropriate tests and failing to keep adequate clinical notes.
The Health Department was unaware of the Professional Services Review findings against Dr Bellamy until the Herald contacted it recently. Dr Bellamy has since apologised for failing to disclose the findings, although she is not obliged to do so.An area health spokesman confirmed that its chief executive, Mike Wallace, had not read the watchdog's 2008-09 report, published in March, which names Dr Bellamy, and includes details of the findings against her. The Health Department did not respond to questions about whether its director-general, Debora Picone, or any other executives had read it.
A spokesman for the area health service said: ''Dr Bellamy has apologised for her oversight in not mentioning the outcome of the PSR's review … The area health service is examining the extent to which these findings may impact on her capacity to undertake her role.''
Dr Bellamy's role includes overseeing complaint handling, patient safety and developing initiatives such as faster detection of deteriorating patients and better clinical handover.
Dr Bellamy told the Herald that the watchdog's findings had no relevance to her job.
''The findings raised no concerns about patient safety and there were no adverse patient outcomes,'' she said.
''I have many years of high-level experience in clinical governance and patient safety which make me well qualified for my current role with SSWAHS.''
She said that her former medical practice, which dealt mostly with menopausal women, was unfairly targeted. ''The PSR did not consider that time spent in eliciting a complex history and counselling patients on treatment options amounted to sufficient 'clinical input' to justify claiming a Medicare rebate for a long consultation. I disagreed with this, believing that the time spent talking with patients was of diagnostic and therapeutic benefit to them,'' she said.
An interesting observation by Dr Bellamy in respect of her being eminently qualified to undertake her role as the SSWAHS Director of Clinical Governance for the (Oh dear! There it is again) Balmain to Bowral region that SSWAHS covers. It is strange isn't it that others (lesser mortals than Directors) who apply for positions for which they are eminently qualified are denied employment in clinical positions simply because they upset someone on the SSWAHS Executive and their names were placed on the NSW Watch List or were sacked. It will be interesting to see if SSWAHS decides that some alleged fraudulent actions by one of their new appointees warrants being sacked. On the basis of past SSWAHS efforts and the lack of photographic evidence, my guess is that nothing will happen to Dr Bellamy and the SSWAHS empire will simply absorb this event as if it never happened.