Prague Orthopedist Convicted of Insurance Fraud — But Keeps His Job as Head Physician

Prague orthopedist Miroslav Synkule, who for years treated footballers from Sparta Prague and Mladá Boleslav as well as players on the Czech national basketball team, has received a suspended sentence for his role in a large-scale insurance fraud network. Despite the final, legally binding verdict, the management of Na Františku Hospital has allowed him to keep his position as head of the orthopedics department.

According to the final ruling of the Prague High Court, obtained by our editorial team, Synkule acted as the "affiliated doctor" in an organized group running multimillion-crown insurance scams. In total, twenty people were convicted in the case.

Fake diagnoses and phantom operations

The doctor invented diagnoses and staged treatments to defraud commercial insurance companies. Part of the scheme was carried out right inside Na Františku Hospital in Prague, where Synkule still works today.

Court documents show he took part in fraud causing total damages exceeding 5.1 million crowns. Of that sum, insurers actually paid out more than 3.35 million crowns, while the remaining 1.78 million remained at the attempted-fraud stage. In June, the court handed Synkule a three-year suspended sentence, a fine of half a million crowns, and ordered the confiscation of more than 844,000 crowns.

According to case files, the scheme was organized by insurance agent Eduard Pekarž, who dictated which diagnoses should be recorded. Synkule exaggerated the severity of patients' injuries, reported procedures that were never performed, and entered fabricated examination records into the system. In the most serious cases, he treated knee joints as if they had suffered acute injuries, knowing full well that the damage was actually old or degenerative in nature.

One telling example involves Pekarž's hairdresser, who took out a series of lucrative insurance policies through him and later received a large payout for a supposedly injured knee. In reality, the woman continued working and was never on sick leave, and a subsequent examination showed her ligaments and menisci were completely healthy.

The doctor fled from journalists, then resigned — partially

When journalists tried to get a comment from Synkule, the doctor fled from them through the hospital's corridors. At the time, he held not only the position of head physician but also that of deputy director for medical and preventive care in the surgical departments. He refused to say whether he planned to resign.

Hospital director Jan Dubna initially said he needed to look into the situation, describing the news of his deputy's conviction merely as "interesting." He later announced that following the encounter with journalists, Synkule had resigned as deputy director, but would keep his post as head of the orthopedics department. "Synkule is a highly qualified specialist in orthopedics and traumatology, and we view the results of the department under his leadership very positively," the director said, adding that he saw no legal obstacle to Synkule continuing his work.

A career built amid scandal

Synkule's rise coincided with a period when the hospital's former director, David Erhart, removed his potential rival for the head-physician post in orthopedics by illegally dismissing another candidate — a move that later cost the hospital 400,000 crowns in compensation. The vacated position went to none other than Erhart's friend, Synkule, who later climbed all the way to deputy director.

Notably, this promotion came after Synkule had already received his first, not-yet-final guilty verdict in the insurance fraud case back in December 2022. What's more, in 2024, while the trial was still ongoing, Forbes magazine included him on its list of the fifty best doctors in the Czech Republic. After Erhart's dismissal, Synkule actively campaigned for his reinstatement, signing an internal petition calling for the former director's return.

Political responsibility for the hospital's operations lies with Prague 1's health councillor Michal Müller and district mayor Terezie Radoměřská, both of whom are running as party leaders in the upcoming municipal elections. A district spokesperson said Prague 1 has no plans to review whether Synkule should remain head physician, since appointing and dismissing head physicians falls solely under the hospital management's authority.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz