Previous Medical Examiner had a problem, too

While she is waiting to hear if Gov. Rick Scott will reappoint her, District One Medical Dr. Andrea Minyard is dealing with an audit that resulted in several allegations of misallocations of costs between Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties, duplication of charges and use of public funds for private purposes.

Brad Embry, Okaloosa County’s Inspector General, conducted the audit and recommended the counties drafted new contracts with the Medical Examiner’s Office requiring more detail budget documentation and annual audits.

Some of Minyard’s problems with the auditors appear to be tied to private company she owns. Payments from all four counties in the district related to cost reimbursements and professional fees associated with the District One Medical Examiner’s Office are made payable to Gulf Coast Autopsy Physicians, P.A. (GCAP), a for-profit corporation of which she is the sole shareholder.

Minyard’s predecessor, Dr. Gary Cumberland, had to resign over questions concerning the billing of his private practice, Pensacola Pathologists P.A..

In 2004, Cumberland resigned amid ethical questions from the state Medical Examiners’ Commission. Cumberland was president of Pensacola Pathologists P.A. and had split time between the ME office and his practice. He came under the scrutiny of the state Medical Examiner’s Commission the previous year for failing to adequately supervise Michael Berkland, former associate medical examiner for Okaloosa and Walton counties. Berkland had been fired in May for keeping a large backlog of cases and failing to complete autopsy reports in a timely manner.

The medical examiners also faced criticism for allegedly charging Escambia and Santa Rosa counties thousands of dollars for work completed by his Pensacola Pathologists P.A.

Note: Berkland made the news in 2012 when police arrested him for allegedly keeping crudely preserved human remains in over a hundred containers in a rented storage unit. Only in Pensacola

Ted Borowski, Medical Examiner Dr. Andrea Minyard’s legal counsel, has questioned the objectivity of the audit that he believed went beyond an examination of finances of the Medical Examiner’s Office. He wrote in his response to report, “The contents of this ‘audit’ merely reflect an attempt to affirm the misinformation being widely circulated by Sheriff Ashley.”

According to Borowski, the “inflammatory statements” made by Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley and others included “Dr. Minyard makes more than a million dollars are year; the DMEO was performing more than 800 y-incision autopsies per year a decade ago; Dr. Minyard does not want to hire an Associate because she wants to the money for herself.”