Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Friday that his office reached a settlement that will allow people who were harmed by Woodbury Dental Arts to ask for refunds.
The settlement with Ellison’s office and the Chapter 7 Trustee for the Bankruptcy Estate of Woodbury Dental Arts, formerly owned and operated by Marko Kamel.
“All too often, when we catch scammers, they don’t have money left to pay back the people they cheated,” Ellison said in an announcement about the settlement. “That almost happened when Woodbury Dental Arts abruptly closed up shop and declared bankruptcy after accepting down payments for costly dental procedures they would never provide.”
The state Board of Dentistry suspended Kamel, who was accused of incompetence after putting two patients through elaborate implant surgeries that failed, leading to painful infections.
In the course of two years, Kamel placed at least 12 traditional and deep-set dental implants into a woman’s jawline and cheekbone, only to have at least seven of them fail, according to the board. That’s a failure rate of nearly 60%, compared to the industry average of 1% to 2%. The woman returned repeatedly for care for loose teeth, sinus concerns, gum and jaw soreness, as well as a screw that had fallen out, according to the judicial record.
Experts later determined that Kamel repeatedly inserted implants into spaces where the previous ones had failed, without allowing proper time for the tissue to heal.
A second patient went to the University of Minnesota — despite Kamel encouraging her not to — complaining of unmanageable pain after his treatments. Surgeons there again discovered evidence he had added a number of implants into infected tissue, and the infections were rapidly progressing toward sepsis and tissue necrosis, or localized tissue death.
The judicial records show that Kamel, in a voicemail, encouraged the patient not to seek their help: “I see that … there is some complications going on, but I definitely do not recommend going to the University of Minnesota, ah, E.R. … We can take care of it. The way that the University of Minnesota is dealing with … any complications … is not something that I would approve … they are not qualified to take care of such a case.”
Both patients later filed complaints with the Minnesota Board of Dentistry, which accused Kamel of “gross ignorance or incompetence in the practice of dentistry” and “personal conduct that brings discredit to the profession of dentistry.”
The settlement permits consumers to obtain refunds from the newly created Consumer Protection Restitution Account in the Attorney General’s Office, which lawmakers created earlier this year. The fund, among other things, is available to refund consumers who were harmed by companies that have gone bankrupt or for some other reason are unable to provide refunds.
The Attorney General’s Office encourages any former patient who believes they may be entitled to a refund under the settlement with Woodbury Dental Arts to contact the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office by calling 612-429-7130 or by emailing woodburydental@ag.state.mn.us.
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