There are times when we have to dig pretty deep to uncover wrongdoing, conflicts of interest, favoritism, and outright corruption. There are other times when the information just seems to drop into our lap.
Such is the ongoing reports of kangaroo court proceedings conducted by the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry. And how was a witness in a case against a fellow dentist rewarded with a seat on the board? And how is that dentist/board member allowed to serve as an insurance claims analyst in determining payments to other dentists in the same geographic area of his own practice?
It’s probably a good idea to provide something of a refresher to bring new readers up to speed. The State Dentistry Board previously had a contract with a private investigator who had a nasty habit of deciding that a dentist was in violation of some obscure regulation and then going about his investigation with the intent of proving his pre-set theory.
Investigator Camp Morrison, who racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in billings while contracted to the board for more than two decades (he even was provided rent-free office space in the Dentistry Board’s office suite on Canal Street in New Orleans), appeared to have an unlimited expense account.
And why not? He roamed the state under color of law, harassing dentists to self-generate his own fees which were more than paid for by the six-figure fines levied against dentists not in the board’s favor.
Of course, he couldn’t have done all that without the aid of the board’s general counsel, who often served in dual capacity as board counsel and board prosecutor, a violation of legal ethics rules and common sense. Because he only had a duty to his client the board of dentistry to act in its best interest, anyone that he prosecuted was denied due process. The same would be true if a police force handled its own prosecutions without an independent prosecutor; there would be no fundamental perception of fairness.
Attorney Brian Begue was also known to hide behind the cloak of administrative law in denying defendants’ rights afforded under the US Constitution. Because he self-generated his own fees, he had apparently selfish financial motives for seeing dentists prosecuted. In 2012, he was found by the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to have violated the due process of a Louisiana dentist. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/11/16/dentistry-board-facing-difficult-future-because-of-policies-contracts-with-attorney-private-investigator-are-cancelled/
This investigator and attorney were perhaps given cover by a few complicit board members and staff to carry out their harassment and extortion schemes.
Take Dr. Isaac “Ike” House of Haughton in Bossier Parish. http://www.lsbd.org/boardinfo.htm
In a highly questionable move by the Jindal administration after he testified as a witness in a hearing in which a Louisiana dentist alleged the board participated in criminal conspiracy and unfair trade practices against him by revoking his license to practice in Louisiana.
Was that appointment his reward for his testimony against the dentist?
Dr. Ike, it seems, wears many hats: he’s a dentist, a witness, a board member, and more recently, it has been learned, an analyst for dental insurance claims for a Baton Rouge dental insurance company.
DENTAL INSURANCE CLAIM ANALYSIS PERFORMED BY DENTAL BOARD MEMBER DR. ISAAC “IKE” HOUSE (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
That last position might appear to some as something of a conflict. As one who performs evaluations of claims for an insurance company serving dentists in his geographic area, he has direct input on their financial reimbursement from the company.
But conflicts of interest have never been a deterrent to the board in the past. The questionable practices of Begue and Morrison is ample evidence of that.
One former Shreveport dentist, Dr. Ryan Haygood, fought the board for several years and finally settled with the board early last month.
Dr. Haygood settled for a fine of $16,500, a fraction of what the board unjustly cost him in its ongoing persecution. Haygood’s attorney told him the facts of life about a board hearing that was cancelled at the last moment after the settlement agreement was reached: the deck was stacked against him and he would lose at the hearing—and it would cost him much more than the $16,500. The board was raising the same issues as before and daring him to appeal. He said he did not have the $300,000 necessary to go through with the appeal, only to lose since the board itself decides all appeals of its decisions.
He said there was no confidentiality clause in the agreement but two of the stipulations of the agreement were that he would take his Internet blog down and that he would sign a “non-disparaging clause.”
LouisianaVoice, however, is not bound by any such restrictions and our blog is still up and we will continue to disparage when deemed appropriate.
Haygood, however, is moving forward with his civil lawsuit against the board which will ultimately be determined in a court of law and not in the Dentistry Board’s hearing room by an attorney who acts as accuser and judge.
Meanwhile, rumors of state and federal investigations persist. http://theadso.org/federal-racketeering-laws-may-finally-bring-the-dental-board-to-its-knees/
It would be most refreshing if investigators could offer a valid explanation of how certain boards’ powers to run roughshod over licensees has been allowed to go unchecked for so long
If there’s corruption, this must be Louisiana (with apologies to the 1969 movie If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium).
Louisiana Voice 
What will it take to stop this awful situation? Someone giveth and that same someone should now taketh. Is it the legislature? The Governor?
Both.
There is no justice. Especially in Louisiana, more specifically with the Board of Dentistry.
I’ve witnessed time and again the flat out evil these people are capable of. Conflicts of interests, trumped-up charges, and career-ending fines and sanctions of dentists based on their own “investigations” to their own illegal search of private databases. I’m a victim myself and can attest to the these atrocities. When will a Louisiana Official finally have the stones to hold the Board accountable!??!
It sounds like Haygood was extorted. Camp Morrison deserves to be in prison. What a terrible human being.
I served as a Federal fraud investigator for six years (1990 – 1996) and, trust me, I saw some things during that timeframe. The most noteworthy being that I spent months investigating what was a bank president’s attempt to bilk an insurance company out of $1.3 million by submitting fictitious invoices for damages to a savings bank right after Hurricane Juan (that was 1985 for the young folk). He submitted over $2 million in invoices with only about $700,000 that were legitimate (that was my core job to find those that were legit vs. those that were fraudulent). I will hand it to Mississippi jurors. They said, “You come to couirt with dirty hands, you get zilch!” They ZEROED out the claim in its entirety!! They said the insurance company should not even have to pay the LEGITIMATE claims!! Hence, the causualty insurance company didn’t have to pay a dime!. My job was to try and establish the level of legit claims (sending out confirmations, tracing payments, calling and/or visiting vendors) so that a D & O (directors and offices) bond claim could be filed to at least recoup the legitimate claims.
I stated the above simply to say that, in ALL that I saw during those six years, AND all I’ve seen at the Louisana Auctioneer’s Licensing Board (and that’s plenty of corruption for such a small-time board), nothing could remotely compare to what I saw in one single visit with Tom to wand-scan tons of Dentistry Board file documentaion two years. Tom had me along merely to operate a second scanner so he could maximize the volume of material he got on that trip. Nevertheless, even though I was operating the scanner as fast as possible, I couldn’t help but quickly read some of the hundreds of pages I was scanning. I really don’t even have words to describe what I saw!!
Thanks for all you do, Tom, to shine a bright light on all of this. I guess, if your readers want a good laugh, shall I tell them that you indavertantly left your lights on as we got out of your vehicle and, by the time we were done and went to return, the battery had gone totally dead! It took us about 30 minutes of walking around pleading for anyone to help, but we came across a nice young man who had one of those “instant start” portable batteries, and we got it cranked and Tom and I headed back home. The guy refused to take a dime for bailing us out! What Tom won’t do to get to the bottom of corruption! Great job on this article, and I hope as many people as possible will facebook share it. I’m about to do so just as soon as I submit the comment to be posted.
Dental school is hard, time consuming and expensive. To have your livelihood in peril because of some SOBs and their egos and greed is disgusting. Hopefully, the dentists have the last laugh: Root canals without anesthesia. “Thirty two teeth in a jawbone…”
Excellent point and that’s what I kept thinking in seeing those documents two years ago.
Auction school is only 80 hours, and it’s really fun. About 95% of auctioneers simply maintain the license as a novelty, and only about 15 – 25 people in Louisiana rely upon auction skills for a living.
I was a hybrid. I put hard work into being the best I could be, but I damn sure didn’t need to rely upon it for a livelihood. That’s what made it so easy for me to say “to hell with it” and commence with a crusade to expose the corruption in the industry.
With dentists, it costs tons more to get that licens (not to mention MUCH more time and energy), and I’m sure no dentist views what they do as a novelty. It’s a genuine shame and disgrace to Louisiana that this calamity has been permitted to continue literally for decades with no action whatsoever taken to rein it in!
My dear friend and dentist was Bill Allen. He took them on and kinda won, he fixed my teeth perfectly, and got “wrote up” for not cleaning teeth, he retired, I go to a new young dentist, who glances at my chart, says, your teeth are in great shape, I see you haven’t had your teeth cleaned in 13 months, so we will just clean them, I say that is 13 years, he then reread my chart 3 times! and yes we need to clean up these governmental agencies most of them Jindalized, and should start at Civil Service. ron thompson
The Allen v LSBD case is one of the most cited administrative law cases in the country.