Vulnerability blinds patients of phony nonprofit health clinic
A few weeks ago,a federal judge in California sentenced 58 year-old Christine Daniel to 14years in federal prison. Daniel, a former doctor and Pentecostal minister, rana health clinic used to offer Daniel’s “herbal treatments.” Daniel encouragedher cancer patients to stop chemotherapy treatments and charged them hundredsof thousands of dollars for these treatments which she claimed could curecancer, diabetes, hepatitis, and many other diseases and conditions.
Daniel tried tomake her patients believe the clinic was a credible nonprofit organization bytelling her patients to classify their payments for “medical services” asdonations to the clinic. At trial, prosecutors introduced evidence thatDaniel’s failure to report taxable income resulted in tax losses to thegovernment in the amount of $73,895.
It is safe toassume that cancer patients and their families are among some of those mostvulnerable people nonprofit organizations seek to help. Consequently, whileclassifying payments for services as donations in most circumstances may seem abit alarming, people desperate for life preserving medical treatment maydisregard such traditional red flags if doing so means there is an opportunityto try something they believe could save their life or the life of a loved one.Certainly, this conception of the vulnerability of cancer patients isn’t novel.However, what, if anything, can be done within the nonprofit sector tosafeguard against people taking advantage of this vulnerability?
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/28/local/la-me-0928-minister-20110928
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