Dark secrets in Dallas, part I: Nebraska Medicine's PM&R chairman and his hidden past of Medicare fraud in Texas

Dr. Samuel Bierner during his time at Parkland Hospital
and UT Southwestern when the feds, news media, and  
medical board were coming down on him and four other 
UTSW PM&R faculty members over charges of Medicare 
fraud and patient endangerment

In September of 2016, we uncovered a very big scandal brewing at Nebraska Medicine involving its recently appointed chairman of its fledgling Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation department (PM&R), Dr. Samuel Michael Bierner of Elkhorn, and his secretive, dark and enigmatic history, back at his old haunts at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.

Parkland is best known as the hospital where President John F. Kennedy was brought after he had been fatally shot in the head by a sniper's bullet on November 23, 1963 in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Kennedy died shortly after arriving at the hospital, and it is no secret that the Kennedy's top aides and Secret Service detail had a very violent tussle with Parkland's medical staff in the aftermath of the President's death over who had legal jurisdiction over performing an autopsy on the President's body. (See video below on Parkland the movie.)

From what we have learned since those articles about Dr. Bierner last September and October from our inside sources, what we've shown so far is only the tip of the iceberg on his deeply troubled past as a physician in Texas, which included an on-going investigation by the state's medical board.

As Madonna Rehab Hospitals holds grand opening of its new Omaha campus, controversy still swirls around new UNMC PM&R chairman's troubled past in Texas

A little over two years after breaking ground on Sept. 4, 2014, construction on Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals new $93 million campus in Omaha is now officially completed, and the hospital is ready for business.

Madonna's grand opening celebration on Thursday kicked off with
only one glitch on Thursday: How will they address UNMC
founding PM&R chairman Dr. Samuel Bierner's (seen on
the left) scandalous past?

So hospital officials hosted a private grand opening event and ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday for the Omaha metro area's first and only hospital dedicated entirely to rehab care at its newest location across from the Village Pointe Shopping Center at 17500 Burke Street, located just south of 175th and Dodge.

Self-guided tours were provided to former patients, Madonna staff, and state and local dignitaries who attended the grand opening event on Thursday morning.

Just before the ground breaking on the new facilities in 2014, Madonna Rehabilitation Specialty Hospital opened a 32-bed unit on the fourth floor of Nebraska Medicine-Bellevue to address the acute inpatient rehab needs of hospitalized patients with complex medical conditions who were ready to be discharged from the hospital but not quite ready to take care of themselves at home.

Madonna plans on merging the 32-bed unit at Bellevue into its new campus after the Omaha campus officially opens.

Texas Medical Board investigation about Kowalske, Bierner, Gabriel, Hudak, and Knapton by Michel Schwalbe