Investigations into former medical resident dropped
The Ontario Provincial Police has dropped its investigation into a former medical resident accused by insurance companies of participating in a scheme to defraud them and “no charges were brought forward.”
“No charges have been laid and we cannot provide further details on the investigation,” Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne told the Toronto Star.
The allegations against Dr. Danny Grossi, who is not licensed to practice medicine, first surfaced in May 2011, according to a report from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, given to the Star by Grossi’s lawyer.
According to the report, authored by a College committee, the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) laid charges against him and other individuals, including their pain clinics, in 2012, for knowingly making false or misleading statements or representations to an insurer and for charging accident victims for services that weren’t provided.
Grossi, a former resident in anesthesiology at the University of Toronto, had also faced 16 charges under Ontario’s Insurance Act, as well as a probe by the Toronto Police. The insurance act charges have been dropped, according to the province’s insurance regulator. The Toronto Police probe has been abandoned and the College has decided not to take any action against Grossi, according to the 2017 report.
“The Committee takes no further action in this matter,” the report said. “A referral to the Discipline Committee is not warranted.”
Grossi told the Star in an interview: “I did absolutely nothing wrong, I was villainized. I was the actual victim in all of this.”
It has been nearly eight years since insurance companies accused Grossi, his pain clinic, and the others and their pain clinics, of stealing doctors’ electronic signatures and pasting them onto false claims for pricey accident treatments they then submitted to the insurance companies for a payout.
In 2015, two of the other defendants and their clinics agreed to pay administrative monetary penalties as part of a settlement with FSCO. The Minutes of Settlement in that case, obtained by the Star, said the defendants and their clinics admitted that between Jan. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2010, the clinics submitted a series of motor vehicle accident benefit claims to insurers in Ontario for goods and services purportedly provided to people who claimed accident benefits. The clinics charged the insurers approximately $1.2 million for these goods and services.
Lawyers for the other defendants and their clinics did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.
Grossi is still defending several civil lawsuits brought by insurers, according to court records.
Grossi was licensed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons to practice medicine as a resident in anesthesiology until June 2011, according to the College’s website. He had been enrolled in the post-graduate training program when the allegations surfaced.
Over the 10 years of his enrollment, Grossi “was forced to take lengthy leaves from his studies to care for a seriously ill family member and did not complete the program,” his lawyer told the Star.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons committee concluded in its report that referring Grossi to the College’s discipline committee wasn’t warranted because, in part, the allegations were not proceeded with by FSCO, and Grossi, who hasn’t been licensed as a physician since 2011, isn’t in a position to bring the medical profession’s reputation into disrepute.