Physician claims he got scammed

If true, the moral of this story should be: get everything in writing when conducting business with someone.

The other moral of this story, if entirely accurate, could be: No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Why that so often proves to be the case, who knows, but it does. Anyone who makes a habit out of trying to help people has experienced it.

Of course, I’m only getting one side of this story, but that’s only because one side is talking, or was talking before attorneys got involved.

I was getting ready to write this intriguing tale Tuesday morning when I got a call from the local physician around whom this story centers. He told me that he spoke to his attorney (never good news for a news reporter), and his attorney told him (the doc) that he’d be better off not going on the record with this story.

Everything he told me was already on the record, and it would have made a heck of a story, considering who it involves (two parties steeped in politics), but why make someone’s life harder, so I told him I’d dump the story.

However, I told him, what I’d like to do is still run the story with the facts as he related them, but just not name him or any one else involved. If his story is true, and I have no reason to doubt it since I’ve yet to see any evidence to the contrary, and only one side is talking, it can serve as a warning to others who might be ready to lend someone a helping hand. Go ahead and lend help to someone if you feel so inclined, but get everything in writing. Even charity cases shouldn’t extinguish common sense or good business sense.

Free rent?

The story starts out like this — this physician who owns several clinics in Hidalgo County ran into a local politico who asked him to help out a close friend who is in the medical profession.

According to the doc, when he first came to the RGV, times were tough. So much so that he was on the verge of leaving south Texas and going to work for someone else outside this area. One day, this older doc told him, no, you stay here, and I’ll let you use my office space for free until you build your practice. No rent. No utilities. Just concentrate on building your practice.

“In six months time, I had enough to go out on my own,” said the physician. “If not for the help of that older physician, I’d never be where I am today. I’ll never forget his kindness, his generosity.”

So, wanting to replicate the help he had once received, the doc offered the same deal to this “medical professional” recently introduced by this public official. He could use the physician’s satellite clinic and set up shop.

“The problem was, I never got anything in writing,” the doc recently said. Mainly because his first point of contact had vouched for this individual.

Fast forward a couple of months, and this doc gets word from another physician that the guy taking up part of his office space, the medical professional, was engaged in unethical behavior, and now he was claiming that he was one of the doc’s “employees.”

The doc told the other physician that the guy didn’t work for him. He was just offering the man free office space as a way of helping him out.

“When I confronted him with my concerns, he told me that he is no longer using my name as his supervisor, required by state law, and so he can pretty much do what he wants.”

The doc said he then told the medical professional, “If that’s the case, you need to vacate my office space.”

That went over like a lead balloon, and now, after approximately three months, the man is still in the doc’s building with no end in sight. He’s changed the front-door lock, and blocked off the door that leads between the two wings of the clinic, so the doc no longer has access to that part of his own building, according to the physician.

When asked to compare space sizes, the physician says his satellite clinic is between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet, and his staff now only occupies between 20 and 30 percent. The other guy, the guy the physician wants out of his building, occupies the remaining 70 to 80%.

“The thing is, I’m the one also paying for all of the utilities, and he’s also using the office for political campaigning. You have people going in and out of there at weird hours. He’s had a gun on the premises. Who’s liable for all of this? I am because it’s my property. To say that I’m more than a little frustrated would be putting it mildly.”

According to the doctor, this isn’t the way things are supposed to work in the U.S.

“You read sad stories from third-world countries where someone, or a group of people, simply seize someone’s property, and they’re driven off of their own land. This is how I view my experience. He has no right to be on my property, my attorney has sent him a letter to vacate, and yet, there he remains.”

The local police are of no help, said the physician.

“They told me it’s a civil matter because this guy is telling the police that we have a verbal agreement in place, but we don’t. All I was trying to do was help this guy, but there was never any written or verbal agreement other than I told him that I’d let him use some of my office space, but that was under the provision that he was doing things by the book. I’ve learned a big lesson over this.”

To get the counterpoint to this story, The Advance reached out to the doc’s original point of contact, a person who rides the local political rails. “I don’t want my name mentioned,” I was told.

I countered, but this physician is saying you’re the one who first asked the doc to get involved with your friend and help him out, and you’re the one who’s now telling the doc that he could maybe pay your friend approximately $50,000 because he’s spent so much money on advertising, and block walking to promote the clinic. So your name is actually part of this story, I said.

“Not true,” I was told.

The medical professional has done nothing wrong, I was told, and in fact, if The Advance wanted to write a story about him, why not write a story about how much good he’s doing in the community. How much charity work he does for people. Why not write about that?

“I would include that,” I said, “as part of this story. Just have him call me.”

He never did. Actually, the morning started out with a brighter shine to it. The woman said she’d set up a meeting at the medical clinic — 11:45 would work — with the man in question on hand, her friend, so he could show me around and show me some of the doc’s angry texts.

Based on how frustrated the doc sounded over the phone, I had little doubt that some of his texts would sound angry.

At about 11:20, though, the same woman phoned back and said that the in-person interview had been canceled. Her friend had spoken to an attorney who had advised him not to say anything ... don’t meet with the press … and that people should be careful that they don’t “slander anyone.”

It’s pretty easy to figure out, I told the woman. If your friend has the right to be on the property, just explain why, when the doc is clearly telling him to get out. This is a pretty simple story. Either your friend has a right to be on that property or he does not. If your attorney is advising your friend not to talk, then ask the attorney if he’ll comment on this story.

“I like you,” she said, “so I just wanted you to be careful.”

She then mentioned something about “lawsuits” for a second or third time.

The doc, who always sounds frustrated when he discusses this matter, said his attorney is now filing a claim at one of the JP’s office. So let it work its way out through that process, he said.

“I’ll tell you what the moral of this story is,” said the doc. “If you feel inclined to do someone a good deed, be very careful. Get an explicit contract drawn up with the help of an attorney, and don’t take anything at face value, because things may not be as they first appear. It’s just not right though. The money I’ve already spent on this, the headaches, the time it’s taken away from patient care, all for nothing but nonsense.”