Unethical. This is a person who doesn't care about a certain subset of his patients. He behaved in demented manner toward me. I don't know if he has alzheimers or is just cruel and dishonest.
I feel deeply traumatized by the way I've been treated by this physician and practice, having many sleepless nights, after what I experienced, which included the physician yelling at me, insulting me, threatening to "CALL LAW ENFORCEMENT" on me, all while attempting to extort additional funds from me under fraudulent pretenses and duress.
I seriously suspect this physician may be exhibiting signs of cognitive compromise, as the alternative explanation is that he has so little regard for me as a person that he willfully ignored the things I told him, resulting in multiple botched procedures and what basically amounts to theft of 26K from a disabled adult. After taking my 26K, he refused to provide follow up care and attempted to double bill me on every procedure that required revison, instead of waiving the surgical fees after 6 months, as is standard practice. Dr. Weiner literally used different words to describe the exact same procedures I had already paid him for, which is about as unethical as a person can get. The doctor smirked at me when he did this, as he knew I had already given him my life's savings, so it was basically a dishonest way to deny me revisionary care, leaving me botched, with multiple surgical errors.
direct quotes follow...
I initially paid for a "medial thigh lift" and "scar excision s/p brachioplasty"
6 months later, the practice wanted 13K more, labeling the revisions as the entirely "new" procedures of
"medial thigh resuspension" and "distal arm skin excision"
I believe Dr. Weiner does quality work for others. I believe he treats wealthy individuals with consideration and professionalism, expecting repeat business. However, although he started out polite, he could not contain his contempt for me, knowing Im an indigent person who had to take out loans for the initial treatment and thus disposable and of no further utility to him or the practice.
The main fall out started after Dr. Weiner used the WRONG markings, which he didn't remove prior to an operation. He also failed to listen to me (or remember what I had said pre op), failed to allow me to turn on my side as a "time out" to verify placement before proceeding with a fat tranfer, and he injected all of the fat into the WRONG area.
I conceded that I would pay the doubled fee for the procedure that was botched --harvesting fat (~3600), followed by a double charge for fat transfer to wrong area (800 and 800), paying almost 5K in total for Dr. Weiners mistake-- provided the practice do the right thing and waive the surgical fees on my revisions after 6 months. NOPE. Again, the MD literally smirked at me, while saying he knows I don't have financial means, so he would make sure the quote for my revisions reflected this.
On this quote where my revisions were presented to me as new procedures, requiring all new surgical fees, all the ancilliary fees were also more than doubled, as well. For example, there was an $800 facility fee 2 months prior, which was all inclusive for a local procedure. Now, the practice wanted a $1400 room fee and 900 local anesthesia fee. From $800 to $2300, within several months is quite a steep increase, even accounting for inflation or normal pricing increases. Again, I believe I was intentionally singled out for mistreatment because of the altercation following the botched fat transfer.
I tearfully told Dr. Weiner he injected the fat in the wrong areas, and I shouldnt be doubled charged for transfer to the same anatomical location, just because he tweaks the wording to label a single location as two separate areas. His surgical technician even knows he misplaced fat into my lower back and elsewhere, when I spefically told him, "no" and had corrected him pre operatively and intraoperatively on the location. Im not sure if he honestly doesn't remember what happened, if he forgot what had transpired between the morning when we went over everything to the afternoon in the operating room, when he was actually performing the procedure; but, for whatever reason, his mask of civility slipped the next day, and he was outright nasty toward me, calling me names and threatening me with "enforcement" officers, if I don't pay the extorted fee.
I tried to make concessions and even offered to pay the doubled fee on the botched transfer to a single anatomical location, just because he had already taken 26K and agreed to revise everything at 6 months with waived surgical fees, but it apparently wasn't enough to rip me off once on the botched procedure and have me pay twice for it. The practice needed to keep my 26K, while denying me follow up care, and trying to rebill me 13K more for all the revisions I had already paid for once. read more