so never get the impression that when a surgeon smiles, she really cares for you. She is really smiling for the money you are giving to her.
Wayne's Prediction:
Having been put out on the front pages of ST, it is clear to me how this will conclude: Susan Lim will be sanctioned for a period of 5 years for overcharging and issuing false invoices. IRAS will find her guilty of tax evasion. Game's over, she put her hand, for too long, in the cookie jar....
S'pore doctor overcharged Bruneian patient: report
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - THE deceased younger sister of Her Majesty Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Hjh Saleha was the victim of overcharging by prominent Singaporean surgeon Dr Susan Lim, an article from Singaporean daily Straits Times reported.
According to the February 24 issue of the newspaper, Dr Lim was treating the late Pengiran Anak Hajah Damit since 2001 up till her death in 2007, which was caused by breast cancer.
The report said a specialist, who was not named, treated the deceased and sent a bill for $400, which Dr Lim bumped up to $211,000, when she billed the Brunei High Commission. In another instance, another unnamed doctor charged $500 but Dr Lim once again raised the price to $93,500.
Dr Lim also charged the patient for cancelling two conferences, on top of treatment fees, with one bill costing $78,000 and the other up to $180,000.
She also charged between $35,000 and $45,000 a day when her employees accompanied the patient for radiotherapy sessions as the hospital, the newspaper reported.
When the patient was in intensive care for five days in May 2007, she was attended to by the doctors and nurses and for that, Dr Lim charged $450,000 for the first day and $250,000 for the other four days for "monitoring services", according to Straits Times.
The Brunei High Commission, which had by then noticed the irregularities in charges, alerted the Ministry of Health (MoH) and expressed concern over costly medical fees in July 2007.
In the same month, two representatives from MoH came to Singapore and spoke to Dr Lim Cheok Peng, the chief executive of Parkway Holdings, which runs medical centres where Dr Lim holds clinic.
These were allegations that were revealed in Singapore's High Court by Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo, the lawyer representing the Singapore Medical Council (SMC), according to the newspaper.
Yeo also said that the third party specialists who treated the patient would send their bills to Dr Lim and she would then mark up the bills when she sent her invoices to the Brunei High Commission.
In the hearing, Yeo also said that he was not asking the High Court to conclude that Dr Lim was overcharging, but added that a disciplinary committee should look into the matter.
Meanwhile, in August 2007, Dr Lim wrote to MoH to disregard the bills that were for services provided by other doctors and gave a 25 per cent discount on her own bills.
Almost three weeks later, she wrote to MoH apologising for the "inadvertent mistakes" made by her office.
The ministry then requested that Singapore's Health Ministry to intervene, stating that the charges were "unacceptable".
Three months later, Dr Lim once again wrote to MoH, and offered to waive her fees from January to June of 2007, as a gesture of goodwill and suggest that they pay up to $3.25 million only.
Originally, after the patient died, Dr Lim queried the rest of the 2007 bill, which came up to a whopping $24.8 million.
Senior Counsel Lee Eng Beng, Dr Lim's lawyer, told the court that his client had informed the deceased earlier on in their relationship that "the close care and attention she needed" would cost $100,000 to $200,00 a day.
The deceased had also assured Dr Lim that charges were not a problem and quoted that the "Istana is paying."
By January 2009, Dr Lim and her husband went to Brunei and offered to waive all her fees and third party bills if the ministry was prepared to issue a "letter of good standing".
The letter would have stated that the Brunei government would not pursue the matter any further and take no issue with her bills.
Her request was not entertained and claimed that she had a "fee agreement" with her patient.
The lawyer was further quoted in Straits Times as saying that an amendment to a regulation and its subsequent revocation appeared timed to target his client.
The amendment freed the legal adviser of the Singapore Medical Council of the obligation to inform the other party of any advice he gave to a disciplinary committee.
The hearing continues on February 28.
