A Pasco County surgical center at the nicely-recognized Bonati Spine Institute has been shut down immediately after Florida overall health care regulators suspended the center’s license.

Regulators alleged instant danger to sufferers simply because a “certified surgical technologist” had performed a number of procedures even although he wasn’t licensed as a medical doctor.

The Hudson surgical center knowingly permitted the unnamed employee to conduct such procedures on sufferers with out getting licensed as a overall health care experienced by the Florida Division of Well being — and regardless of other employees members raising issues about his actions, according to a 13-web page emergency suspension order filed Wednesday by the Agency for Well being Care Administration, or AHCA.

The for-profit ambulatory surgical center, known as the Health-related Improvement Corporation of Pasco County, has 3 operating rooms and 5 recovery beds, according to the Agency for Well being Care Administration. The agency fined the center $1,000 final year immediately after facility leadership took no apparent actions to alert the state overall health division to a COVID-19 outbreak in which seven personnel had been infected, state records show.

The surgical center was incorporated in 1983, according to state company records. It shares an address with the Gulf Coast Orthopedic Center, frequently recognized as the Bonati Spine Institute, according to state overall health division records. The Bonati Spine Institute’s web page says it pioneered the use of laser spine surgery.

Dr. Alfred O. Bonati, 83, a surgeon, is the administrator of each Gulf Coast Orthopedic Center and the Health-related Improvement Corporation of Pasco County, according to the Agency for Well being Care Administration. Bonati, founder of the Bonati Spine Institute, has been licensed as a Florida medical doctor given that 1981, according to the state overall health division.

The exterior of the the Bonati Spine Institute is observed Friday, March 17, 2023 in Hudson. [ CHRIS URSO | Times ]

The troubles at the surgery center “span maybe years,” according to the emergency order. The center also “failed or refused” to offer some patients’ healthcare records to Florida regulators, the order stated, so the state couldn’t assess their surgical outcomes.

The center “knew or ought to have recognized of alleged unlicensed surgical practice,” the order says, “but has demonstrated no action to even investigate the repeated allegations.”

The order, which took impact at five p.m. Wednesday, described the failures as “operational and management method deficiencies” that endangered “the overall health, security and welfare” of the center’s sufferers.

Lawyers for the Health-related Improvement Corporation of Pasco County late Thursday requested that Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal keep the emergency order. They stated the order shuts down the company “with practically one hundred personnel losing their jobs.” In a separate filing, they also urged the court to quash the order.

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The attorneys stated the emergency order “does not sufficiently allege that any future harm will take place.”

“We vehemently disagree with AHCA’s contentions,” stated Scott J. Flint, a St. Petersburg lawyer representing the company. “We appear forward to vindicating Health-related Improvement Corporation and its personnel in court. Other than that, we will not be commenting on any ongoing litigation.”

Bonati could not be reached for comment. Flint stated the medical doctor would not comment.

Complaints against Bonati

The state overall health division has so far filed two complaints against Bonati this year alleging healthcare malpractice associated to back surgeries. 1 complaint stated Bonati performed six surgeries on a patient “without proof of improvement.” The other stated he performed a number of surgeries on a patient more than a roughly 3-month span with out attempting much less invasive remedy.

Flint, the lawyer, declined to comment on the complaints. The state overall health division confirmed the situations are ongoing.

Bonati has faced a number of disciplinary situations more than the final two decades, according to a Tampa Bay Instances report and state overall health division records.

Connected: Medical doctor faces scrutiny once more

In 2010, an arbitration panel awarded practically $12 million to a couple who claimed unnecessary operations at the spine institute left the husband unable to stroll, the Tampa Bay Instances reported.

In 2013, an arbitration panel ordered Bonati to spend $two million to a lady who alleged in a lawsuit that the medical doctor subjected her to unnecessary tests and performed 5 unnecessary surgeries, the newspaper reported.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel discovered in a 2017 investigation that the state had brought 24 disciplinary situations against Bonati given that 1992 — a lot more than any other medical doctor practicing in Florida at that time.

Connected: Hudson surgeon is sued once more

Most up-to-date inspection

The Bonati Spine Institute’s web page says it has performed a lot more than 75,000 productive procedures more than 35 years and has a patient satisfaction price of more than 98%.

In the course of an inspection that began final week at the Health-related Improvement Corporation of Pasco County, a state regulator saw a employees member — whom the ambulatory surgical center described as a “certified surgical technologist” — close a wound immediately after a patient underwent a spinal process, according to the Agency for Well being Care Administration’s emergency order. No doctor was in the surgical suite, the order says.

A handful of days later, a regulator witnessed the employee treat an additional patient’s surgical wound, with out a medical doctor present, following a spinal process, according to the order.

The center’s threat manager indicated that the employee also “performed an whole spinal surgery on a patient in the current previous,” according to the order.

The threat manager stated he told the employee he wasn’t a licensed doctor and couldn’t carry out surgical procedures, the order says. In response, the unlicensed employees member argued that he was carrying out procedures “under the surgeon’s license,” according to the order.

The order says the employees member performed surgical procedures for quite a few years even when admonished a number of occasions by the threat manager not to do so.

At least when, the surgical technologist stated the center’s surgeon was “no longer capable to carry out these procedures due to the physician’s age and overall health status,” according to the order from state regulators.

The surgeon, who is unnamed in the order, dismissed the threat manager’s issues and refused to take action, the order says.

The threat manager also told the center’s healthcare director about the unlicensed activity on at least eight occasions and brought issues to the center’s legal counsel final year, according to the order, but the challenges went unaddressed.

A registered nurse, who was previously the center’s operating space director, told the surgeon about the unlicensed employee’s actions, also, and at least two employees members resigned immediately after practically nothing was accomplished to address the predicament, according to the order.

In court papers, attorneys for the company proposed that the 1st District Court of Appeal problem an order stopping the “certified surgery technologist” and all other personnel from “performing something outdoors the scope of their respective certifications or licensure,” alternatively of shutting down surgeries.

But state regulators stated in the emergency order that the surgery center’s threat management and good quality manage processes, “if functional at all,” have not been efficient or implemented.

“If the Agency does not act,” the order says, “it is probably that the (center’s) conduct will continue.”

Instances employees writers Chris Urso and Veronica Gonzalez contributed to this report.