A Crooked Dentist Walks Into A Bar – Part 1

By Janet Grace

Wait’ll you get a load of THIS nonsense. It is unfortunate that what I’m about to tell you actually occurred. I wasn’t surprised when I read it. I purposely picked it to write about because it happened in our family, and who knows how many others. I’ll start there.

There seems to be the general consensus that the educated word has more value than ones own, and that is not true.

What do you call a person who gets “D-“ all throughout medical school, yet graduates standing next to the Valedictorian, who did the work and knows it inside and out?

The answer is DOCTOR.

I know. It’s frightening, right? It is the same for everything else, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, attorneys, i.e., President Baby Bush, who failed the Bar exam three times before Daddy, dot, dot, dot. He went far, huh? He sent Americans further, unfortunately.

Now that any cat can obtain a degree, it’s mostly we older folks; =raised with misconceptions by folks who didn’t have the opportunity to study, who automatically viewed those holding degrees, diplomas and “good jobs,” so-called professionals, as being HONEST, TRUSTWORTHY, HEROES. You’d think. However, you cannot buy decency, integrity or self respect.

I don’t even have to finish this article. You already know WTF happened here.

Right as our molars were coming in, our new family dentist, a whole lot nicer than the Twilight Zone Dentists we went to at Sydenham Hospital in Morningside Heights, (More about that in another article, Part Two) deemed that my sister and I would be needing root canals and extensive fillings from all the cavities he said he’d found in our mouths at our tender ages of eight and thirteen.

We were not allowed to eat candy, drink soda or chew gum except for special occasions, so where’d the damage come from? I still kept Bazooka Joe in business when no one was the wiser, though; so, but — still.

Now that we know better, we would be getting a second opinion; you would think, but many people still trust doctors and “professionals” over their own gut.

Obviously, the guy was a freaking horror show and everything he did was solely to make money. There was nothing wrong with our little teeth. We weren’t in pain. We chewed on ice cubes without incident. My mother was an avid “Oh, you want an icey? Here’s a cup of ice and half a teaspoon of honey. Now, go! Be quiet!” so, yeah, nothing was wrong. When you need a root canal, Baby, you KNOW IT.

So, here’s the scoop on this present day piece of trash.

Criminal and Ex-Dr. Scott Charmoli, a Jackson, Wisconsin dentist, was found guilty of billing insurance for stuff that should not have been done.

His crime was the oldest trick in the book and so heinous, I believe he should have every single tooth extracted out of his mouth sans anesthesia. He should be made to give every dime back from whence it came.

He was found guilty of five counts of health care fraud and two counts for lying about his patients’ diagnosis, treatment plan, so states the charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wyoming.

What he did, exactly like the charming Dr. Fink, whose seeming kindness hid his cruelty, was to deceive his patients into believing that their healthy teeth were beyond damaged requiring, of course, the most expensive courses of treatment. He’d drill into perfectly healthy teeth, take x-rays to fool insurance companies into believing that these were the patients teeth prior to his examinations, resulting in many healthy teeth receiving previously unnecessary root canals, caps while lining his pockets to the tune of millions of dollars, 6.8 million to be exact and two dream houses, one in Wyoming and another in Arizona, during a three year crime spree. He’s facing what will equate to a lifetime sentence for his wrong-doings.

“Many of Charmoli’s patients also paid significant co-pays for these crown procedures,” the testimony stated.
One of his unfortunate victims, Todd Tedeschi, testified at his four day trial. This dentist knew no bounds to his grotesque gluttony. He deceived Mr. Tedeschi, into receiving two crowns in one sitting when each step requires time for the wound to heal properly before moving on to the next step in the procedure. That act alone is criminal, placing each victim at risk of infection, perhaps even death.

“It seemed excessive, but I didn’t know any better,” the patient, Tedeschi, stated. “He was the professional. I just trusted him.”. It is documented that he conducted and billed 1,000 crowns each in 2015 and in 2016. Beginning in 2017 until 2019, he billed out for more than 700 crown caps for every single year. If you can imagine that the average amount of people requiring this particular procedure is a mere six out of every hundred patients. It is indeed rare, and most definitely suspicious that the Ex-Dr. Charmoli billed an excessive amount of thirty procedures out of every hundred.

While we were just hearing of the upcoming Covid-19 Horror coming to our shores, the deceitful Dr. Charmoli was home jumping into his Mc Scrooge roomful of money to the tune of over $6.8 million smackeroos, complete with those previously mentioned vacation homes in Wisconsin and Arizona. That’s what prosecutors claimed. They said he billed insurance companies more than $4.2 million for cap crowns between the three years: 2016 and 2019.

This crook faces anywhere from zero to ten years for each count of fraud and zero to five years for each of the lies on his statement account. Not even Mr. Clean can clear up any of the dirt found on this thief. He’s up for sentencing in June. I’m quite curious to see how good an attorney one can hire with all of that stolen money. I’ll be keeping an eye on this story, for my own personal peace of mind. May all of his teeth pay for his crimes in Gen Pop Cell D.

As for me, I’m currently having a new permanent lower bridge built by a third year student at the University of Dentistry in Maryland, to fill the empty slots left by Dr. Fink’s greed and sub-par workmanship, which had his fillings drop out less than five years later causing extensive damage and subsequently leading to the loss of every molar God gave me, save for two remaining, but I’ve got much to smile about. One down, two to go.

Peace out, Peeps.
JG )O(