Spine doctor Cully White admits guilt in fraud case, surrenders license

Nov. 22--A Milwaukee-area spine doctor pleaded guilty Friday to federal health care fraud, two days after surrendering his state medical license in the wake of complaints about substandard surgeries going back to 2004.

Cully White, 45, of Pewaukee, had been facing four separate complaints filed with the state's Medical Examining Board, whose investigation revealed that despite questionable competence, White had been performing about 600 surgeries a year, twice the rate of peer neurosurgeons.

The board found White "engaged in practices that tend to constitute dangers to the health, welfare and safety of his patients," according to a decision and order signed Wednesday.

White was charged in May with 14 counts of health care fraud. According to an indictment, from November 2010 to October 2011, White recruited another doctor to dictate reports that made it appear the second doctor had conducted "inner-operative nerve monitoring" while White performed surgeries, and paid the second physician $150 for each report. The other physician did not conduct the monitoring or even have the required training to do so, according to prosecutors.

White then used the reports to submit claims of $265,000 to insurance companies for the nerve monitoring services. White collected only $82,000 on those claims and paid a total of nearly $15,000 to the second physician, who was not identified by prosecutors.

On Friday, White pleaded guilty to a single count before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who scheduled sentencing for Feb. 27. His attorney, Dennis Coffey, did not return a call seeking comment.

The plea deal was reached in September, but the matter of White's professional license remained an issue. A complaint filed in 2009 alleged that White had operated on the wrong side of a patient's spine in 2004 and didn't disclose the error.

In 2010, that patient took the extraordinary step of asking a court to force the state's medical board to speed up its investigation into White's conduct. By that time, the patient's medical malpractice suit against White had been settled for $2.9 million.

That legal action was dismissed, and the formal action, which didn't begin until July 2012, remained open until Wednesday. In the case of the 2013 complaint, the board's enforcement division proposed a summary suspension of White in June, but the board took no action for lack of a quorum, according to its Wednesday order. Two other complaints dated from 2011 were dismissed as part of the stipulated resolution.

The order accepted White's voluntary surrender of his license, effective Dec. 17. The order left open the possibility White could seek readmission to practice medicine in three years, but only if he met conditions including a competence assessment.

In January, White underwent such an assessment in Colorado. Tests showed he had difficulty processing information and that a comprehensive neuropsychological examination should be done. White agreed not to perform surgery until that was completed.

In February, a Milwaukee doctor concluded White had some issues in reading and visual scanning speed, but not so severe that he couldn't practice medicine if he slowed down from seeing 50 patients a day.

In March, other surgeons reviewed White's records from sample months in 2012 and found that "he sometimes undertook more invasive surgical intervention than was warranted, and sometimes were not consistent with Respondent's diagnosis of the same patient."

It also concluded "White demonstrated good knowledge of surgical technique and approaches, but both chart reviews and discussions raised concerns about his foundational knowledge of the clinical diagnosis of neurosurgical spine conditions."

The report recommended White undertake a "structured, individualized educational intervention" to modify his approach to practice and "reassess his patient care volume."

White obtained his degree from Des Moines University, College of Osteopathic Medicine, and completed residency at Ohio University, according to his website. He discusses minimally invasive spine surgery in a YouTube video.

White operated Cully White, Neurosurgery and Spine, S.C. in Milwaukee and was a partner at Midwest Neurosciences Associates, with privileges at several area hospitals. White's former partner at Midwest Neurosciences, Arvind Ahuja, was convicted of tax fraud last year.

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