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Legislation is being proposed and actively pursued in the state of California to limit and control the prescribing of compound medicines in workers' compensation cases, and to limit what can be charged for these compounds, when medically necessary, by adding them to the fee schedule. 

The leaders of this proposed legislation are California state Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), who is a former chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, and California Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana), who is currently chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee.   A coalition of normally diametrically opposed groups, consisting of Labor, Insurance Companies, and Employers, has come together in this situation of outrageous abuse against the California workers' compensation system in order to fight back and stop the hemorrhaging of monies being paid for unnecessary and overly expensive medical prescriptions.  The billings for these types of prescriptions have exponentially increased during the past two years.

A compound drug is one which is specially created by a pharmacist as prescribed by a doctor to meet the individual, specific and unique needs of a single patient.  For example, a specific pill-form medication may have a non-essential ingredient in it that is hard on the liver, or the kidneys, but a pharmacist can extract that element out of it.  Then, other ingredients can be added into it, perhaps elements that can aid with sleep, or relaxation.  They can even be elements from over-the-counter drugs. 

Pills can be turned into ointments or salves, and ingested through the skin for patients who have problems with swallowing pills.  Many esoteric and unique concoctions can be created by pharmacists to meet the specific and unique needs of unique patient conditions.

And this can be a very good thing.  Where medically necessary, such a compound medication can be a life saver to a particular patient. 

But, abusers seeking an easy buck out of workers' compensation payments can give out a compound to a patient, totally free to the patient, which the patient does not individually need at all, and charge an outrageous fee for it to the workers' compensation carrier or self-insured.   Not only is there this abuse problem of the creation and distribution of compounds where not medically necessary, but compounds are not on the fee schedule, therefore medical providers can charge outrageously inflated prices for them.

One such abuser notoriously known for distributing compounds to workers' compensation injury patients without the medical necessity and charging outrageously high prices for them is orthopedic surgeon Munir Marwan Uwaydah, M.D.  Now a person of interest in a 2008 Santa Monica, California, murder case, Dr. Uwaydah's whereabouts in the world are uncertain at this time, but his intention to create compounds with the murder victim's father, pharmacist Greg Redding, is rather certain.

Juliana Redding, a beautiful 21-year-old aspiring model and actress, was found murdered in her Santa Monica apartment on March 16th 2008.   The accused murderer is Kelly Soo Park, who was a key employee and associate of Uwaydah, who is presently awaiting trial for the murder in downtown Los Angeles while out on a 3.5 million dollar bond. 

Uwaydah, a known pursuer of beautiful women, pursued Juliana Redding and found out he had not only struck gold with Juliana being a gorgeous young woman who appeared to respond to him, but thought he struck gold twice in the same place with the fact that Juliana's father was a licensed pharmacist. 

Uwaydah and Greg Redding were in negotiations over a pharmacy business which fell apart when, apparently, Redding backed out of the deal.  Just days after their business dealings fell apart, Juliana Redding was found murdered.   At the crime scene was found Kelly Soo Park's DNA in multiple places.

How often is greed a motive for murder?  We all know that answer. Very often. 

We all know the stories about Life Insurance policies.   And, in this case involving Uwaydah and Kelly Soo Park, speculation can go on: perhaps Kelly got angry over her frustration to her own interests in her greedy businesses with Uwaydah and killed Juliana out of her own frustrated rage, or Uwaydah had a hand in it. 

Law enforcement isn't talking, not while the investigation is still going on and the trial hasn't even started yet.  Workers' comp claims industry SIU investigators are not talking either.  At least not openly.  One who insisted on anonymity told this writer there are many other players in this game of compounded drugs besides Dr. Uwaydah.  There is a massive network involving Uwaydah in the center and other networks with other doctors in the center of those other networks.   This SIU investigator also said he/she is under commitment not to talk to any media representative or anyone, for that matter, due to an agreement with Karen Thompson, the lead investigator of the Santa Monica Police Department.  So, law enforcement has a tight clamp on this compound drug subject because it's connected to a current murder case which has not even gotten through trial. 

In an L.A. Times article published yesterday, December 28th, by Times writer Marc Lifsher, Lifsher wrote, "Beyond a rise in billings, however, neither state nor insurance industry officials could point to systematic evidence of widespread abuse.� 

I am confident that insurance industry officials can easily point to systematic evidence of widespread abuse.  They simply won't point to it. They are simply not talking.  Nobody is talking for the reasons I have just stated. 

To be continued tomorrow, December 30th 2010.  Look forward to Part II. 

lonce@adjustercom.com

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