Former Desai clinic has a new name but no involvement with old owner

Getting back to that whole lipstick on a pig thing, or in this case, lipstick on a limited liability company: Does changing the name of one of Dr. Dipak Desai's clinics mean he no longer owns it?

Because Nevada law permits limited liability companies to hide the identity of partners, it wasn't so easy to get the answer. However, the Clark County Business License Department got to the bottom of it before giving the new surgery center a license in July.

Spanish Hills Surgical Center at 5915 S. Rainbow Blvd., Suite 108, was one of Desai's six centers that operated under the umbrella company Gastroenterology Center of Nevada LLP. Spanish Hills was licensed as a state-of-the-art endoscopy facility in November 2007 and was one of the five Desai clinics closed in May because of concerns about hepatitis. Spanish Hills was not one of the clinics identified by health officials as the possible source of a hepatitis outbreak through unsafe procedures with anesthesia syringes.

Goodbye, Spanish Hills. Hello Stonecreek Surgery Center LLC.

Ophthalmologist Rudy Manthei, a medical adviser to Gov. Jim Gibbons, owns Stonecreek.

Before approving the license, the county wanted assurances there was no affiliation between Stonecreek Surgery Center LLC and Spanish Hills Surgical Center LLC. The state Bureau of Licensure and Certification checked and assured the county Stonecreek does not have any principal owners or operators who were affiliated with Spanish Hills Surgical Center LLC. Stonecreek will be an ambulatory surgical center, not an endoscopy center.

That doesn't mean there aren't some connections between Drs. Manthei and Desai.

The two doctors were both board members for the Bank of George. Desai is no longer on the bank board and also resigned from the Board of Medical Examiners after news of the hepatitis outbreak broke in February.

When Manthei needed a loan to buy the equipment and fixtures in the Spanish Hills endoscopy center, the Bank of George obliged. On Aug. 7, the privately held community bank loaned Manthei $952,277 to buy the equipment and fixtures from Desai.

So does Desai have another $1 million in assets since selling the equipment to Manthei? Actually, no. The money Manthei's LLC paid for the equipment paid off a previous loan and didn't leave anything extra.

Stonecreek Offices LLC owns the building, according to loan documents filed with the Clark County recorder's office. The principals in that are Ram Janga and Jeff Chain. Janga is a member of Desai's temple. The 16,000-square-foot building is up for sale, and the asking price is $4 million.

In April, Manthei said he was interested in buying Spanish Hills Surgical Center and Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center and said he would encourage the physicians who worked for Desai to practice there until any wrongdoing was determined because they deserve due process. He said he would buy the equipment and assume the leases at the two centers but would not buy the buildings.

Two weeks later, Manthei dropped the idea, saying the two endoscopy centers are not equipped for procedures other than endoscopies and he preferred to own multispecialty surgery centers. Manthei founded Nevada Eye & Ear and is the main owner of Seven Hills Surgery Center. His spokeswoman failed to return repeated calls about his new clinic so I got no answer about why the ophthalmologist would buy endoscopy equipment if he wasn't going to perform endoscopies.

My visit to the building Monday showed another name change in the adjacent Suite 105. The Gastroenterology Center of Nevada is now Great West Medical Associates. Drs. Frank Faris, Clifford Carrol and Vish Sharma, all gastroenterologoists who worked at Desai's clinics and had ownership interests, have offices under this new name.

Only Desai and Dr. Eladio Carrera have agreed not to practice medicine while the Board of Medical Examiners investigate the clinics and all 14 doctors who worked there.

Over the years, I've learned to loathe LLCs as I try to track land deals involving politicians and their pals. LLCs allow people to hide their interests in various companies from public scrutiny. Hidden and layered interests using LLCs are commonplace in Nevada, as reporter Margaret Ann Miille wrote in detail in the Sept. 14 Review-Journal.

Kudos to Clark County for making sure the transfer of one of Desai's endoscopy centers from one LLC to another isn't just a pig wearing a new shade of lipstick called "Naked Greed."

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.