NEWPORT BEACH : Board Suspends Licenses of 2 Plastic Surgeons

Two Newport Beach plastic surgeons accused in an insurance scam targeting Southeast Asian patients in Westminster agreed to a 90-day suspension in a recent settlement with state licensing authorities.

As part of the agreement with the Medical Board of California, doctors Graham Kemsley and Peter Voloshin admitted to falsifying the records of three patients to collect insurance money. The pair initially were accused of fraudulent billing, dishonesty, gross negligence and incompetence in connection with care of 23 patients between 1985 and 1988.

The doctors, who have not been charged with any crime, were accused by licensing authorities of performing cosmetic procedures, such as nose reductions, in the back rooms of cosmetology businesses owned by Elizabeth Cam Thach Thi Le of Los Angeles. Le, the office manager, used the businesses to recruit Southeast Asian patients, according to a formal accusation filed by the Medical Board in 1992 against the doctors.

The physicians then billed for non-cosmetic procedures in an attempt to get insurance money, and split the proceeds with Le, the accusation stated. Insurance companies typically do not cover cosmetic procedures.

But Beverly Hills attorney Jeffrey Brodey, who represented Voloshin, said it was never proved that the doctors did the procedures at Le’s cosmetology businesses.

“Anything that was done was in a medically approved way. . . . It was not a back-room operation,” he said.

He said the doctors did admit to some improper billing practices, but their practices had been “aboveboard” since they terminated their relationship with Le.

Le was convicted in December of insurance fraud and grand theft in Orange County Superior Court in a separate criminal case stemming from a scam at one of the facilities, Cam Thach Clinic.

Under the settlement, Kemsley and Voloshin each were placed on five years’ probation and agreed to numerous conditions, including taking an ethics course and paying $62,500 each in compensation and fines.