Menu Close

An indictment charged a Valencia doctor and former Workers’ Compensation toxicology expert with operating a $6.5 million scheme to defraud the Medicare program by billing Medicare for medical services that were not actually provided. Gary J. Ordog M.D., 60, was indicted by a federal grand jury for nine counts of health care fraud. Some of Ordog’s history and reputation was featured in a 2005 Forbes “Dr. Mold” article..

Ordog allegedly assisted beneficiaries with various toxicological symptoms, including those related to mold and chemical exposures. Ordog would allegedly see a beneficiary at least once in connection with the potential evaluation and management of his or her conditions. Subsequently, often several years after the last time he saw a particular beneficiary, Ordog would allegedly submit false claims to Medicare for purported additional visits with the same beneficiary, when the visits never actually occurred. In certain instances, Ordog allegedly billed Medicare for services provided to beneficiaries who were deceased as of the claimed date of service.

This is not his first brush with regulators. According to public documents posted online by the Medical Board of California, Ordog’s medical license was suspended for 90 days in 2006 and he was placed on seven years of probation following accusations of gross negligence and dishonesty. The Factual Findings in that case indicate that Ordog established a medical-legal practice, offering himself as an expert witness in a variety of legal settings, in 1980. He evaluated civil, criminal and workers’ compensation cases for attorneys representing both plaintiffs and defendants, and for insurance companies. He has testified in deposition and trial more than 100 times.

The 2006 Accusation under the topic of “Quality of Care” reviews the cases of four patients referred in 1999 by a Long Beach attorney named Eric Hoerchner for evaluations of workers’ compensation claims his clients made against their employer, ALCOA Vernon Works, in Vernon, California. Each of the patients claimed a compensable on-the-job injury due to exposure to toxic substances. After a careful review of his examination and findings, the Administrative Law Judge concluded “Taken together, respondent’s diagnoses of toxic encephalopathy and neuropathy, bacterial sepsis, multiple viral, fungal and bacterial infections, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia were not medically indicated and represented extreme departures from the standard of practice and gross negligence. The departures are deemed extreme departures due to the lack of any colorable, documented indications for their rendering.”

The 2006 Accusation also included a section on “Allegations of Dishonesty” and this section indicated that Ordog provided expert witness services for many plaintiffs who claimed to have suffered personal injury due to exposure to toxic substances, including molds. In one of his forensic cases involving the Gelderbloom family, he authored a letter which was introduced into evidence in a jury trial over which Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper presided. Judge Scheper was the individual who referred this case to the MBC as a result of her concerns of possible insurance fraud. Ordog later admitted in a deposition that this letter was a form letter that he signed but may not have read. He also admitted that his patients were improving by March 8, 2002, contrary to the content of the letter. The Administrative Law Judge found “Respondent committed a dishonest or corrupt act in connection with the March 8, 2002 letter he provided in the Gelderbloom matter. Taken alone, the letter might be dismissed as merely careless. But in the context of respondent’s other transgressions, all committed in furtherance of his medical-legal practice, the form letter cannot be dismissed as a mere oversight. Moreover, the letter contains misrepresentations that had significance to his patients’ health management and represented a corruption of the legal system.”

Ordog indicated at times in testimony that he was co-author of the medical school textbook, Ellenhom’s Medical Toxicology: Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Poisoning, first published in 1988. However at the hearing, “Mrs. Sylvia Ellenhorn testified credibly in this hearing that she had, indeed, typed all of the Second Edition from her husband’s handwritten text. She sent “hard copies” of her work product to the publisher and never dealt with respondent at all.” The Administrative Law Judge found “By clear and convincing evidence, respondent was guilty of dishonesty on multiple occasions regarding his claim of authorship of Ellenhom’s text.

Ordog was placed on probation in 2006 by the Medical Board. One of the terms of his probation said “Respondent shall be prohibited from engaging in a medical-legal or forensics practice of medicine during the period of probation. Unfortunately, the Medical Board filed a Petition to Revoke his probation in 2011 alleging he violated this provision by evaluating four Workers’ Compensation cases between 2006 and 2008 while on probation. Ordog stipulated to resolve this Petition to Revoke by the extension of his probation for an additional term of 18 months.

The Medical Board probation has recently been completed. Ordog now faces federal charges of nine counts of health care fraud.