B.C. doctor's licence permanently cancelled after decades of misconduct and fraudulent billing

A Metro Vancouver family doctor with a long history of discipline for fraudulent billing and misconduct will soon have his medical licence permanently cancelled by his professional college.

Dr. Gustavo Carvalho, who most recently worked in Richmond, B.C., was already banned for life from billing to the Medical Services Plan (MSP). He was the province's first ever physician to be permanently de-enrolled from the public health insurance system.

Now his registration in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. will be revoked on New Year's Day, with a lifetime ban on re-applying, after he admitted to breaking several conditions placed on his practice because of previous disciplinary issues, according to a notice on the college's website.

The notice says the college's inquiry committee "was concerned that Dr. Carvalho continued to commit unprofessional conduct, including professional misconduct, following decades of regulatory actions taken against him and attempted remediation."

Carvalho has consented to the cancellation of his licence, according to the notice. His current contact information could not be located.

Taken together, the college's notice and court records detail three decades' worth of investigations, misconduct and discipline for Carvalho.

His history with the college begins all the way back to 1993, just three years into his medical career, when he was suspended and fined $20,000 for "infamous conduct" for billing MSP for services he never provided.

A judge who rejected Carvalho's appeal of those disciplinary measures noted that "his dishonesty strikes at the root of the system and undermines the integrity of his profession."

Carvalho was reprimanded again in 2001 for failing to protect the confidentiality of patient records by disposing of their files in a recycling bin at his clinic in Vancouver.

His name was then erased from the college's register in 2003 after criminal convictions for harassment and breaching the conditions of his sentence.

Carvalho returned to work in 2007, and it didn't take long for him to attract the college's attention once more.

In 2012, he was suspended again and fined $50,000 for making improper claims to MSP. According to a college news release from that time, he received about $4,000 in public funds by invoicing for 27 fake appointments with patients in 2009.

He then received another reprimand and fine in 2016 for breaking conditions on his practice, and in 2018, he was suspended and fined one more time for breaching the conditions on his practice related to record-keeping and working under supervision.

Meanwhile, at the same time the college was keeping an eye on Carvalho, B.C.'s Medical Services Commission was watching his billing to MSP.