Answered step by step
Verified Expert Solution
Link Copied!

Question

1 Approved Answer

Analyze the details of the following case and answer the question. Dr. Bird moved to Arizonaand established Professional Plastic People PLLC (Bird PLLC), an entity

Analyze the details of the following case and answer the question.

Dr. Bird moved to Arizonaand established Professional Plastic People PLLC ("Bird PLLC"), an entity that he used to bill professional fees for plastic surgeries. Raptor moved to Arizona a couple years later and established Ralph Raptor PLLC ("Raptor PLLC) to bill professional fees. Bird and Raptor agreed to be in practice together. They began to establish a website. The website designer warned Bird and Raptor that the professionalplastic.com URL would need additional SEO because the domain did not contain "plastic surgery" in the name. Thereafter, Raptor purchased PPPplasticsurgery.com himself. In order to maximize SEO, Raptor and Bird decided to direct additional URL's to the PPPplasticsurgery.com website. Theybegan operating out of the same space, equally splitting various costs, including office, equipment, employee payroll, and utilities. Their joint practice utilized the name "Professional Plastic People" as the group practice.

Then, Bird and Raptor established a number of entities to operate medical practices and provide administrative support to those medical practices, including Building, LLC. BUILDING owns a building and office. Both Raptor and Bird provided the funds to purchase BUILDING's two properties equally.

Bird and Raptor also formed Plastic Performance Center, LLC ("PPC") and began doing surgeries at PPC so that they could split their facility fees that PPC would bill.PPC leases the surgery center facility from BUILDING. Each doctor performing surgeries at PPC, including Raptor and Bird, utilized their own separate entities for purposes of billing their professional fees for procedures performed at PPC. Bird utilized Bird PLLC and Raptor utilized Raptor PLLC. But, with respect to each doctor performing surgeries at PPC, PPC was supposed to bill that doctor's surgeries' facility fees under PPC. In turn, PPC would utilize the revenue generated from the facility fees to pay for overhead expenses related to the surgery center's operations and then disburse any profits according to PPC's ownership structure, 50% to Bird and 50% to Raptor.

After a few years of operations, Bird met with Mickey Hart from Apex Financial. Hart informed Bird that the cases Raptor performed at PPC had "lost" money that year, while Bird's cases at PPC had made over a million dollars in facility fees. Bird got mad at Raptor because he believed that he was generating all the revenue for PPC through his PPC billed facility fees. He claimed that Raptor violated their agreement.

Raptor and Bird began to negotiate a way to split up.Towards the end of this process, despite being very close to a formal agreement, Bird fired his attorney and abruptly went "radio silent" regarding the negotiations and the operating agreements. Bird decided to form a new company, PPC-1, to try to bill his cases.

While Bird and Raptor were in the midst of negotiations, Bird instructed the billing department to cease billing PPC facility fees for the cases that Bird performed at PPC, likely because Bird hoped to bill and collect the revenue from his new entity PPC-1. Raptor noticed the extensive dip in PPC's revenue.

Around the same time, Bird unilaterally submitted a change of ownership application ("CHOW") to the ADHS, requesting that ADHS separate PPC's license into two - PPC and PPC-1. Bird attempted tocreate the public and private appearance that PPC-1 and PPC were two separate entities, operating independently. He accomplished this by unilaterally changing several established PPC functions and protocols, including segregating PPC's electronic medical records between doctors, segregating and locking up paper medical records and documentation associated with the cases Bird performed at PPC, asking PPC's staff to resign and hiring them to work for his individually owned entity

Bird then decided to stop billing certain PPC facility fees, but Bird continued to bill for his own professional fees through Bird PLLC. Bird refers to these cases as surgery center "charity cases." All of the patients for which Bird did "charity" cases have insurance.

When Raptor began to realize Bird's scheme, Raptor engaged XYZ to bill PPC's facility fees. Raptor informed Birdthat he directed XYZ to bill these cases for PPC. Raptor deposited the money that XYZ was able to collect concerning his cases and Bird's cases at PPC in his personal bank account so that Bird wouldn't have access to it.

PPC-1 never actually obtained a license and is violating Arizona law by billing cases. Bird refuses to bill cases under PPC because he doesn't want to share the money with Raptor. Raptor, then, redirected the website to his own name and new business.

Step by Step Solution

There are 3 Steps involved in it

Step: 1

blur-text-image

Get Instant Access to Expert-Tailored Solutions

See step-by-step solutions with expert insights and AI powered tools for academic success

Step: 2

blur-text-image

Step: 3

blur-text-image

Ace Your Homework with AI

Get the answers you need in no time with our AI-driven, step-by-step assistance

Get Started

Recommended Textbook for

Criminal Law A Contemporary Approach

Authors: Russell Weaver, John Burkoff, Catherine Hancock

4th Edition

1684679028, 978-1684679027

More Books

Students also viewed these Law questions