Hustling Hope: San Diego Doctor Runs Controversial Diabetes Clinic
Just about every Tuesday morning around 7:30, John McCreary of Poway can be found waiting for Dr. James Novak’s office to open. Almost always, McCreary said, he’s the first one there. Novak’s practice is listed as the only one in the San Diego area offering Trina Health’s “Artificial Pancreas Treatment,” a four-hour IV insulin infusion procedure for people with diabetes. Some people like McCreary, 69, who has wrestled with diabetic nerve pain for years, said they think the procedure is working for them. Since he started going to Novak for the infusions last summer, he said the infusions have been effective. They have made the painful tingling in his hands — “like I was just constantly grabbing on to a barrel cactus” — almost disappear, McCreary said. He said his Medicare coverage and his supplemental plan from Colonial Penn Life Insurance Co. have paid for everything. McCreary said he is supposed to go today for his infusion. He hasn’t heard that anything will change at the clinic since the news last week that Trina founder and CEO G. Ford Gilbert was indicted on fraud and bribery charges in Alabama. “I guess it’s going to be a wait and see situation,” he said. Gilbert is accused of bribery, health care fraud and wire fraud, among other charges, in what federal prosecutors call a “public corruption scheme.” He is accused of paying an Alabama politician to try to get legislation passed that would have required an insurance plan there to pay for his infusions. The plan and Medicare had previously denied coverage, based on the lack of scientific proof that IV insulin infusions actually benefit patients. The legislation never passed. Gilbert and two other defendants are due in court on April 18. Read more.
By Cheryl Clark, inewsource
Just about every Tuesday morning around 7:30, John McCreary of Poway can be found waiting for Dr. James Novak’s office to open. Almost always, McCreary said, he’s the first one there.
Novak’s practice is listed as the only one in the San Diego area offering Trina Health’s “Artificial Pancreas Treatment,” a four-hour IV insulin infusion procedure for people with diabetes. Some people like McCreary, 69, who has wrestled with diabetic nerve pain for years, said they think the procedure is working for them.
Since he started going to Novak for the infusions last summer, he said the infusions have been effective. They have made the painful tingling in his hands — “like I was just constantly grabbing on to a barrel cactus” — almost disappear, McCreary said. He said his Medicare coverage and his supplemental plan from Colonial Penn Life Insurance Co. have paid for everything.
McCreary said he is supposed to go today for his infusion. He hasn’t heard that anything will change at the clinic since the news last week that Trina founder and CEO G. Ford Gilbert was indicted on fraud and bribery charges in Alabama.
“I guess it’s going to be a wait and see situation,” he said.
Gilbert is accused of bribery, health care fraud and wire fraud, among other charges, in what federal prosecutors call a “public corruption scheme.” He is accused of paying an Alabama politician to try to get legislation passed that would have required an insurance plan there to pay for his infusions. The plan and Medicare had previously denied coverage, based on the lack of scientific proof that IV insulin infusions actually benefit patients. The legislation never passed. Gilbert and two other defendants are due in court on April 18. 
