Same Firm Awarded Coroner’s Pathology Work, Gets Pay Hike

For the last five months, county officials have sought bidders for pathology work at the county coroner’s office to replace the exclusive contract with the Richards-Fischer-Fukumoto Medical Group.

On Thursday, the Board of Supervisors received the county staff’s recommendation for a five-year contract: the Richards-Fischer-Fukumoto Medical Group of Anaheim.

The firm bid $220 per autopsy beginning in November and increasing to $280 over five years. Under the present no-bid contract the county pays $125 per autopsy.

The county mailed more than 500 letters to possible respondents to let them know about the bidding, and more than 50 of those parties showed an interest. But Richards-Fischer-Fukumoto was the only bidder.

Sheriff’s Office Pleased

No pathologists in the area could match the stringent requirements, which include having the autopsies performed by certified forensic pathologists, said Assistant Sheriff Walt Fath.

“We are very pleased,” Fath said. “These doctors have been doing excellent work for us for years. We’re glad to have them continue.”

The doctors in that medical group have not been without controversy.

Two years ago, Dr. Robert Richards filed a lawsuit for slander against Central Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood after the judge publicly accused him of being involved in a cover-up of a beating death at the Orange County Jail.

In May, the supervisors noted some public complaints about the pathologists, including criticism that Dr. Walter Fischer of the group had misplaced some evidence in a murder case. The supervisors asked county staff officials to inquire about it. They also decided, based on a recommendation from the county administrative office, that the contract for the pathology work should be open to bid.

In July, Fischer was found dead in his car in a vacant parking lot in Orange. He had shot himself twice in the heart.

In August, Dr. Richard Fukumoto of the medical group filed a lawsuit against the Orange County Register, claiming it had printed defamatory statements about him and his performance as a forensic pathologist.

Thomas F. Riley, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said that when the board meets on Tuesday it will almost certainly accept the staff recommendation to award the contract to Richards-Fischer-Fukumoto.

Fukumoto said Thursday that he viewed the county staff recommendation as “a vote of confidence in our work.”

“We feel very strongly that we have been wronged,” Fukumoto said. “Our competency has been questioned after we provided the county with years of excellent service at low cost.”

When the supervisors decided on competitive bidding, Fischer had responded by saying: “Fine. We’ll put in a bid for double what we’re getting paid now.”

That’s almost what happened. The cost of an autopsy will double by the third year of the five-year contract. The increased price, plus an anticipated increase in the number of autopsies performed, raised the county’s estimated annual cost from the current $250,000 to $474,000, an 89% jump, for the first year of the contract.

The county General Services Agency states in a supplemental letter to the supervisors that early projections show the number of autopsies performed by the coroner’s office probably will increase from about 2,000 last year to 2,500 this year.

Fees Called Typical

The total contract to Richards-Fischer-Fukumoto will be $3.1 million for 1985 to 1990, GSA officials state. But county staff officials add in their letter to the board that a panel which reviewed the doctors’ bid determined it was consistent with fees charges elsewhere in the industry.

Asked if the supervisors’ decision to switch to competitive bidding cost the county money, Fukumoto grinned and said, “Probably.”

“We were going to ask for a raise because we just couldn’t do the work any longer at the price we were getting,” Fukumoto said. “But when they asked for bids, we decided to ask for what we thought we deserved.”

Supervisor Riley said he has no regrets about changing policy to competitive bidding.

‘Good Business Practice’

“Acting on pressure that was developed by the public’s concern on what was happening, I don’t think the board had any alternative but to take the action that we did,” Riley said.

Riley called it “just good business practice” and added that after so many years without competitive bidding, “I think it was necessary.”

Riley said he was not surprised no one else bid because he had learned from the county staff that there were few qualified people, and “the chance of getting somebody local was practically nil.”

The proposal gives the supervisors the option to renew the contract for two years subject to renegotiation of the fee.

Richards began doing autopsy work for the county in the mid-1960s and was soon joined by Fischer. Fukumoto joined a few years later. They worked several years with no contract at all, then in the 1970s signed a contract in which fees went from $50 an autopsy to the current $125 ($100 plus expenses).

Adding to Staff

Fukumoto insists that the doctors will not be made rich by the new contract. Under the old contract, the three doctors did all the work, assisted by one trainee. But by next spring, Fukumoto said, the group will include five pathologists, all of them certified by the American Board of Pathology.

Of the payment for each autopsy, the pathologists must pay for their own lab work, and they often had to put in extra hours because of court appearances.

The group will retain Fischer’s name. “We wanted to keep the name the same, to honor him; he was an excellent pathologist,” Fukumoto said.

Fischer’s family retains control of his interest in the medical group.