2025 Shkreli Awards – Dishonorable Mentions

We recently revealed the “winners” of the 2025 Shkreli Awards, our 9th annual roast of the most shameless behavior in healthcare. Each year, we share the top ten most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare, but trust us — there are many, many more ways our healthcare system prioritizes profits over patients. That’s why we also share some “Dishonorable Mentions.” These stories fell just shy of making the final list, but are still worth sharing.

Illegal perks helped Eli Lilly push GLP-1 prescriptions, says Texas AG

Texas prosecutors say Eli Lilly pumped up its GLP-1 revenues with kickbacks disguised as support services. The state’s lawsuit claims Lilly pushed some of its most profitable drugs, including Mounjaro and Zepbound, by giving clinics free nurses and offering reimbursement help that steered prescribers toward its drugs over those of rivals. According to the attorney general, those inducements left Texas Medicaid on the hook for millions in claims “tainted by Eli Lilly’s illegal marketing and quid pro quo arrangements.”

Lilly says it will fight the case and notes that co-plaintiff Health Choice Alliance has brought similar suits before that were dismissed. The company continues to dominate the GLP-1 market, reporting $8.57 billion in second-quarter sales for Zepbound and Mounjaro alone.

Source: Robert Barrie, Eli Lilly accused of bribing providers to prescribe GLP-1RA drugs, Pharmaceutical Technology

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Eeny meeny miney D’oh! Tragic surgical lapse leads to alleged cover up

At Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar, Florida, surgeon Thomas Shaknovsky allegedly removed a patient’s liver instead of his spleen—killing him—and then helped orchestrate a cover-up to hide the error. According to a lawsuit filed by the widow, Beverly Bryan, Shaknovsky labeled the removed organ as a spleen even though it was ten times the normal size, while hospital leaders falsified records and misled the family in an effort to cover up the fatal mistake. Bryan says a nurse even chased her into the parking lot to secure her signature waiving an autopsy.

A medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide caused by massive blood loss from the removal of the liver, noting that the spleen remained untouched. Shaknovsky’s medical license was subsequently suspended by the Florida surgeon general. As part of the fallout, it came to light that Shaknovsky had made a similar mistake in 2023, when he allegedly removed part of a patient’s pancreas instead of their adrenal gland. 

Source: Jonathan Edwards, Surgeon removed wrong organ then covered it up, widow alleges in suit, The Washington Post

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Lack of oversight allows cosmetic chains to court cut-rate clinicians

Cosmetic surgery chains are raking in cash while handing patients over to doctors with questionable qualifications. A KFF Health News investigation found clinics hiring out-of-state surgeons with shaky track records, temporary pandemic licenses, malpractice histories, and even active disciplinary actions. At Atlanta’s Goals Aesthetics & Plastic Surgery, surgeon Andrew Hsu was allowed to operate despite multiple prior issues and an internal admission that he needed “substantial training” to do acceptable work. Patients say the results were devastating: disfiguring injuries, severe infections, burns, surgical objects left inside their bodies, and life-altering pain.

Companies have drawn more than 200 lawsuits over the last seven years. Court records show that doctors disciplined for misconduct, sued repeatedly, or suspended by state boards are still being contracted to perform liposuction, tummy tucks, and BBLs. Some clinics employ surgeons with multiple patient deaths. Others keep practitioners in the operating room even after sexual misconduct allegations.

Patients hoping to make informed choices are mostly out of luck. There is no national system to track complications, no way to compare injury rates across clinics, and no public record showing the full practice histories of surgeons performing these risky procedures.

Source: Fred Schulte, Doctors With Troubled Pasts Are Performing Cosmetic Surgeries Tied to Crippling Pain and Injury, KFF Health News

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NY prison system appears to be plump with problem docs

According to online news site THE CITY, New York’s prison system has become a landing spot for doctors whose records would bar them from many other medical settings. Physicians treating the state’s 32,000 incarcerated people have histories that include severing a newborn’s finger during delivery, assaulting nurses, draining fluid from the wrong side of a patient’s chest, botching surgeries, altering records, and even committing felonies.

Chronic doctor shortages and difficulty recruiting clinicians to remote upstate prisons has put pressure on the system. But critics say the real problem lies with state medical boards that routinely let sanctioned physicians keep their licenses under probation, which allows them to remain employable inside prisons despite sometimes serious misconduct.

The result is a stark imbalance: as many as 10% of prison doctors have been disciplined for failing to meet basic medical standards, compared with just 0.5% of physicians statewide.

Source: Reuven Blau and Max Rivera, Doctors Sanctioned for Glaring Medical Mistakes Find a Place to Practice in NY State Prisons, THE CITY

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Pain patients treated like pincushions; pressured into pointless pricks

For eight years, Michael Kestner built a business model around exploiting people who were dependent on opioids and terrified of withdrawal, according to KFF Health News. Patients at Kestner’s network of pain clinics were told that if they wanted their monthly pain medicine, they had to submit to a series of injections that were unnecessary, often painful, and offered little to no clinical benefit. They did benefit the business, however, making it millions.

In total, 700,000 total injections were administered over an eight year period with some patients receiving as many as 24 shots in a single visit. Four staff members pleaded guilty or have been convicted of health care fraud. Kestner was found guilty of 13 felonies and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

According to Michelle Shaw, a former patient, “I would come home crying. It just felt like they were using me.”

Source: Brett Kelman, Pain Clinics Made Millions From ‘Unnecessary’ Injections Into ‘Human Pin Cushions’, KFF Health News

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