GP accused of $1.3 million patient scam

The Health Ministry accuses Hongsheng Kong of a 'systematic and skilful' scam. Photo / Martin Sykes

An Auckland doctor is fighting allegations he falsified patient records to obtain more than $1.3 million of taxpayers' money.

Ministry of Health prosecutors allege Hongsheng Kong carried out a "systematic and skilful" scam in which he manipulated files at his Panmure practice, Hong Kong Surgery.

Kong faces 24 fraud charges and a single charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The latter charge stems from an allegation he changed his diagnosis of a skin cancer patient, who subsequently died.

In an Auckland District Court depositions hearing yesterday, prosecutor Mark Woolford said that in a bid to receive ongoing Government funding, Kong tampered with records to make it appear he had more patients than he did and to show that patients had visited him when they had not.

Mr Woolford said in one case a family had moved to Australia in June 2000, but Kong's records showed four transactions involving them up to six years later.

Kong allegedly also tampered with a patient's file to amend a skin cancer diagnosis he made in November 2005.

The patient died of melanoma in January 2007, prompting the family to formally complain to the Health and Disability Commissioner.

Mr Woolford told the Herald the commissioner cleared Kong of wrongdoing because investigators had relied on a file that had allegedly already been manipulated.

Ministry of Health auditors investigating the fraud allegations noticed that Kong had edited the computer file containing his original diagnosis on the same day lab test results arrived confirming the cancer, Mr Woolford said.

The court heard that auditors found discrepancies in Kong's diagnosis and a letter he had forwarded to a diabetes clinic about the matter.

Giving evidence yesterday, National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga, a former senior manager at Auckpac, the private health organisation that funded Kong's clinic, said the number of patients the clinic had was "staggering" and he had marked a file stating so in bold.

At one point, Kong claimed to have 4395 patients.

Mr Lotu-Iiga said Kong had told him many of his patients did not want to fill out an enrolment form but wanted to use him as their regular GP - something Mr Lotu-Iiga said he found "bizarre" but a possible explanation for the high numbers.

Mr Lotu-Iiga said he told Kong he needed to classify his patients as "casual" if they were not enrolled, and Kong had told him he would do his best to correct any errors.

An audit in 2005 had found "inconsistencies and anomalies" in Kong's database, the MP said.

Also giving evidence, David Landreth - a former detective now employed by the ministry - said he began investigating Kong early in 2007 after a tip-off from someone concerned about the number of patients at the clinic.

Mr Landreth said that when he came to Auckland to decide if an investigation was needed, he first tried to find some of Kong's patients. "Of the 16 that I attempted to locate, I was not able to locate any."

Two addresses were for homes that did not exist as residential premises. "One was a vacant car yard."

The occupants of another home had lived there for 54 years, but had not heard of the patient, Mr Landreth said.

Kong's lawyer, Paul Davison, QC, told the court his client "hotly contested" the allegations.

Mr Davison asked the court to remember that the prosecution's outline of the case was not fact, but simply what the Ministry of Health hoped to prove during the upcoming trial.

The depositions hearing - which will receive evidence from 53 witnesses - is scheduled to run until Friday.