Tribunal suspends doctor’s registration over fraudulent conduct to pay off gambling debt
A fraudster doctor billed health insurers $24,000 using unauthorised patients’ clinical records to help pay off his gambling debt.
South East
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A doctor has been reprimanded and his registration suspended after he fleeced private health insurers of more than $24,000 to pay off his gambling debt.
Dr Alex Chu took home copies of patients’ clinical records from his workplace at Jessie McPherson Hospital and used that information to dishonestly bill insurers for services he had not provided over 10 months between January and October 2018.
He fraudulently obtained $24,005 while working as a trainee surgical registrar at Monash Health which was part of the hospital.
He sent 13 invoices in which he falsely indicated he had assisted in surgeries and was entitled to be paid.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal suspended Dr Chu’s registration as a medical practitioner for six months from February 1 and ordered him to complete a number of education and mentoring programs.
Dr Chu initially blamed his dishonesty on an “administrative error” but later owned up to his conduct.
He has been battling major depression for 16 years and told investigators he committed the fraud out of desperation to pay off his debts which exacerbated after he drifted into heavy gambling at Crown Casino.
A report from consultant psychologist Dr Luke Armstrong stated Dr Chu was diagnosed with major depression after failing first year medicine.
It was around this time that he first went to the casino and after finding the experience “euphoric”, he began attending regularly as gambling became a form of self- medication for his depression.
Dr Chu said he would gamble up to $10,000 at a time and had lost more than $100,000 over the years on the addiction.
In May 2020, the Magistrates’ Court placed Dr Chu on a good behaviour bond on charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception.
He failed to advise the Medical Board of Australia about the court’s outcome.
“The Tribunal finds that the conduct was particularly serious in the circumstances of the case, including that the conduct was carefully calculated to misuse his role as a medical practitioner in the hospital to commit the offences, the conduct involved a high level of dishonesty, and placed his own interests above those of the patients,” a VCAT court report stated.
The Tribunal accepted Dr Chu had developed genuine insight and remorse for his conduct and had undertaken significant efforts at rehabilitation.
