Coney Island Hospital Docs Steal From City System

From the New York Post:

A doctors group that supplies medical services to Coney Island Hospital created a separate corporation that took in $4.2 million in fees that should have gone to the city hospital system — but it’s a mystery who authorized the spinoff, according to records obtained by The Post.

Now some of the doctors employed by University Medical Group Associates are themselves demanding answers from its leaders about the creation of the University Group Research and Education Fund.

Joseph Jerome, who oversaw the operation even though he isn’t an MD, collected $681,969 in 2006. That included $457,233 from the doctors group, $115,000 from the subsidiary fund and $109,736 in deferred compensation and benefits, according to IRS filings.

In 2007, he received a total of $695,079.

The group president at the time, Kemambady Sheka, chair of Coney Island’s surgery department, had earnings and benefits of $726,303 in 2006 and $694,136 in 2007 from the dual salary lines.

Minutes of the board of directors’ meetings show the doctors group created the fund as a depository for fees of about $1 million a year coming in from St. George’s Medical School in the Caribbean, which sent its students to train at Coney Island under the doctors.