Total Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Syosset.Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
ByRobert Brodskyrobert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobertUpdated June 10, 2025
A spinal surgeon at a well-known Long Island-based medical firm, who also helps operate Nassau University Medical Center’s orthopedics department, has been barred from treating patients with workers’ compensation claims, records obtained by Newsday show In an April 15 letter first made public last week and obtained by Newsday, the State Workers’ Compensation Board informed Dr Vadim Lerman, the associate director of spine surgery at Total Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, who holds the same title at NUMC, that they were rejecting the renewal of his application allowing him to seek reimbursement for the treatment of injured workers The letter accused Lerman of “billing irregularities,” inadequate medical recordkeeping and performing “highly invasive” surgeries without medical justification
The top leadership at Total Orthopedics, which has four Nassau County locations, simultaneously operate the Orthopedics Department at NUMC, the cash-strapped public hospital whose oversight board wasrecently taken overby the state In fact,NUMC’s websitestates “clinical supervision of NUMC’s Orthopedics Department is provided by Total Orthopedics & Sports Medicine.”
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUNDDr Vadim Lerman, associatedirector of spine surgery at Total Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, who holds the same title at Nassau University Medical Center, has been barred from treating patients with workers’ compensation claims.In an April 15 letter,the State Workers’ Compensation Board accused Lerman of “billing irregularities,” inadequate medical recordkeeping and performing “highly invasive” surgeries without medical justification.The leadership at Total Orthopedics,which has four Nassau locations, also operate the Orthopedics Department at NUMC, the cash-strapped public hospital whose oversight board was taken over by the state In an emailed statement responding to the Workers’ Compensation letter, Total Orthopedics & Sports Medicine said it “looks forward to the opportunity to vigorously refute these baseless allegations in a legal forum and stands by its stellar reputation for exceptional medical care that it and its award-winning physicians have provided for more than two decades.”
From breaking news to special features and documentaries, the NewsdayTV team is covering the issues that matter to you
By clicking Sign up, you agree to ourprivacy policy Total Orthopedics and Lerman personally were recently named as defendants in several recent major federal lawsuits, including onealleging they conspiredwith a group of Freeport residents, a Manhattan law firm and a vast network of other medical providers to collect millions of dollars in insurance payouts for bogus accident claims Court records reviewed by Newsday allege surgeons at Total Orthopedics often see patients — typically litigants in lawsuits stemming from accidents in Brooklyn — and then direct them to spinal surgery at NUMC, which they or their colleagues later perform In many instances, those surgeries are performed on individuals without insurance, so the costs of the expensive procedures are absorbed by the hospital, which is already $1.4 billion in debt, court records show
As a safety net public hospital, NUMC is required to provide treatment to all patients who comes through its emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay Lerman, a board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon who holds staff appointments at Beth Israel Medical Center, Mount Sinai South Nassau, NUMC and at Northwell Health hospitals, did not return multiple requests for comment.
Source: Newsday_Com
