Investigation: Clinic making questionable claims

A Sharonville clinic that promises to cure men of erectile dysfunction in a single visit makes some questionable claims in its Ohio advertisements, an Enquirer investigation has found.

At issue are ads in the newspaper and on radio that tout "Board Certified Urologist approved" treatments when, in fact, the doctors on site are a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon, both of whom told The Enquirer that their training consisted of reading a manual written by a Florida doctor they've neither met nor spoken with directly.

That doctor, Muni Sheldon Polsky, defended the Physicians E.D. clinic to The Enquirer in a recent phone interview. He said that while some of the advertisements are "a little circuitous," none of the clinic's representatives have lied.

After fielding a complaint from a customer, The Enquirer investigated the clinic, reaching out to the Ohio Medical Board, the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, the federal Food and Drug Administration and four physicians. All agreed that oversight in the case was murky because wide latitude is given to doctors to ensure that they have freedom to treat patients as they deem appropriate.

The thinking is that doctors need flexibility to do what's best in individual cases as all patients are unique, but officials acknowledged that the system could allow niche clinics to fall through regulatory cracks.

"I take pride in consulting for the company," said Polsky, who graduated in 1968 from the University of Kentucky and is licensed in both Florida and Texas. Polsky's manual is disseminated to doctors at six clinics nationwide: Cincinnati; Rocky Hill, Connecticut; Pittsburgh; Overland Park, Kansas; Fort Myers, Florida; and Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

"We're just a business trying to do the right thing," Polsky said. "Most of our patients leave our clinics very happy."

The Enquirer investigation of the clinic discovered the following:

• Advertisements and the clinic's website identify Polsky, who is not licensed in Ohio, as the medical director. A radio ad mentions Dr. Michael Trombley. There is an Ohio-licensed physician with that name, but he told The Enquirer that he is not connected to the clinic and gets teased by patients and friends about his name being used in the radio ad. When asked, Polsky said he wasn't sure where the Michael Trombley mentioned in the ad is from.

• Two calls made to the clinic's 800 number were answered by employees in Florida, who told an Enquirer reporter attempting to set an appointment alternately that he would be seen by Polsky himself, then another time by a "board-certified urologist." However, the two local doctors providing treatment at the clinic are Drs. Everett Jones and Frank Welsh, a dermatologist and plastic surgeon, respectively. Neither is a urologist. Polsky said he's never treated patients in Ohio.

• When contacted by The Enquirer, Jones said that he treats men by injecting a four-drug combination into their penises, but he was only able to name three of the medications used. "I can't remember what the fourth is called," he said.

• Jones said he was hired as the Physicians E.D. clinic about three months ago after he spotted a Craigslist ad looking for a doctor.

• Welsh, who works at the clinic Mondays and Fridays, said he was trained by Polsky and expressed surprise when told by a reporter that Polsky wasn't licensed in Ohio. Welsh insisted that he had a copy of Polsky's state license in the office, but he was unable to locate it. Welsh then clarified that his training consisted of reading a manual written by Polsky and said he had never met or directly spoken with the doctor.

Welsh has mostly favorable ratings on the user-generated doctor review site vitals.com, which describes him as a plastic surgery specialist with 45 years of experience. Jones is a retired dermatologist who used to practice in Milford.

Licenses are issued to physicians in Ohio by the state Medical Board. "Although the doctor's practice is not limited to a specific specialty, the doctor must practice within the minimal standards of care," Joan Wehrle, the board's education and outreach program manager, told The Enquirer.

That means that doctors aren't restricted to practice just in their areas of specialty, making a plastic surgeon free from a legal and ethical standpoint to treat anything from cancer to erectile dysfunction, so long as all medical decisions are made in the patient's best interest.

Wehrle declined to comment on the Physicians E.D. clinic because the "medical board does not comment on specific practice models."

Both Welsh and Jones said that many of their patients are happy with the treatment they receive, though Welsh acknowledged that some call it a scam when given the bill. Potential patients are only told about a $199 to $299 exam cost when they make an appointment. The medications used cost extra.

"We hear that all of the time because of the cost," Welsh said. "If it were $150 for 100 treatments, it'd be fine. If it's $1,500 or $15,000 for treatment, then it's a scam."

Polsky is the face of the company, appearing in videos on the web next to claims such as "Get your sex life back in just one visit! It's that easy." The website also claims the medication provided allows patients to control how long their erections will last, be that "45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes or longer. It's your decision," the site states.

That claim specifically concerned Nicole Prause, an associate research scientist with the University of California-Los Angeles, whom The Enquirer contacted for this story. Prause, a PhD, works with the Sexual Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in Los Angeles.

"I am not aware of any science that supports being able to control erections down to the minute," Prause said. "I cannot imagine a situation where I would refer a patient to a clinic making such promises."

Polsky said that the clinic's treatments are safe and that most complaints arise after patients consult with their regular urologists, who he said view the clinics as competition.

"They consider us to be a threat to their well-being and their practice," Polsky said. "If you have a call from an irate doctor, usually it's because he thinks of us as a threat. It's how a lot of these problems occur."

Polsky said that the clinics have a "90-something percent" success rate, and that some patients prefer injecting drugs into their penises rather than undergoing surgery, such as for inflatable penile implants.

Welsh said that he and Jones are "discriminatory" in whom they treat. Men over age 80 who can afford the treatment sometimes are turned away, he said. "If it looks like it would smell like fraud to take advantage of a frail old man and take his money ... we don't do that," Welsh said. "We say, 'I'm sorry, sir, but this is probably not the best thing for you.' We try to let them down easy."

Anthony Burns, who identified himself as a spokesman for the Yale Clinic – the parent company that oversees Physicians E.D. – contacted The Enquirer about the patient who initially complained. Burns said that patient's $5,125 charge was reimbursed after a reporter visited the Sharonville clinic asking about its practices.