August 15, 2019 Recent Legal News
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California v Le
Filed
California's AG finally sued someone beside President Trump. He has filed charges against Kim Thien Le for illegally impersonating a pharmacist. Le has been working at Walgreens for for one year using false licenses.
US v Mulvey
Indicted
Kelsey Mulvey, RN of Grand Island, was a nurse at Roswell Park and was indicted for stealing drugs and replacing them with water. She is also accused of stealing oral meds. She plead not guilty. It was also discovered that the syringes that had been diluted were contaminated with Sphingomonas paucimobilis and that six of the patients got septicemia from the syringes.
California v Germano
Filed
Guido Germano, the director of AI Medicine at Cedar Sinai, has been charged with the possession and distribution of child porn.
Michigan v Strampel
Sentenced
Dr. William Strampel, DO, the past dean of the Michigan State College of Osteopathic Medicine and the boss of Dr. Larr Nassar was sentenced to one year in jail for misconduct in office and willful neglect of overseeing Nassar. He was found not guilty of second degree criminal sexual conduct.
Delaware v Cary
Indicted
Sr. Damon Cary ws indicted of falsifying medical records and prescribing opiods without a good faith exam. He also had his medical license suspended pending a hearing. Top
US v Pate
Sentenced
Detra Pate the owner of Southern Respiratory in Georgia was sentenced to ten years in prison for fraud. She was also ordered to pay $950,000 in restitution. She charged for falsifying prescriptions and giving cheaper supplies than what was ordered.
Bingham v HCA
Dismissed
A whistleblower suit was dismissed when the court found that the claims regarding sweetheart deals for physicians on their rents were not provable.
US v Naushad
Indicted
Dr. Abdul Naushad and his wife Wajiha of Twon and Country, Missouri, were indicted for purchasing non-FDA medical devices and smuggling them into the country. He would then inject the contraband Orthovisc into knees collecting money from patients andf insurance companies.
US v Trumbo
Guilty
Dominic Trumbo of Lexington, Kentucky, was found guilty by a jury of soliciting and getting kickbacks for referring patients to home health agencies.
US v Gooding
Indicted
Dr. Frederick Gooding, a DC practicing physician, was indicted on health care fraud. He is alleged to have done procedures not medical necessary and or not provided. He is also accused of falsifying his medical records to look like the procedures were done and medically necessary.
US v Khali
Settlement
Beaver Medical Group in Redlands, California and Dr. Sherif Khali have agreed to pay $5 million to settle allegations that they reported invalid diagnoses to MA plans to get more money from Medicare. This was a qui tam filed by a physician former employee who will get $850,000
US v Voudouris
Guilty
Dr. Dialecti Voudouris, a New York city oncologist, pled guilty to accepting bribes from Insys Therapeutics, the maker of Subsys. She admitted to prescribing the med for her oncology patients in return for receiving over $100,000 in kickbacks.
US v Roix
Settlement
Scott Roix, a telemarketer in Florida, agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle allegations that he and his businesses violated the FCA by causing false claims to be reported in connection with telemedicine health care schemes. They allegedly fraudulently got insurance information, to get fake creme meds made up and shipped to the patients. The cremes were not medically necessary according to the feds. Top
Philbrick v Azar
D DC
The art of forum shopping is alive and well. For the third time a DC federal judge ruled that Medicaid work requirements put on by states are not constitutional. The same judge ruled now against New Hampshire as he had previously against Kentucky and Arkansas. He said the laws failed to take into consideration the effect on Medicaid coverage. Find a friendly and continue going to him or her. Top
Patients v Imperial Health
To Be Filed
Imperial Health, a Louisiana physician network, has notified 111,000 patients about a ransomware attack. There is no mention as to how the attacker got into the network.
Patients v Philadelphia Department
of Behavioral Health
To Be Filed
A laptop that had patient information of 1500 people was stolen. It was password protected but not encrypted. It is negligent not to have laptops encrypted.
Patients v Presbyterian Health
To Be Filed
Here 183,000 patients in New Mexico had their information breached after some type of data breach. This was a phishing scam. They are NOW adding additional security to their system.
Patients v Premira Blue Cross
Settlement
A federal judge has given the OK to a settlement of $74 million for the 2014 breach of 10.6 million records. This will give $32 million to the people to cover costs of damages and the rest to allow Premira to improve their security over three years. Premira had been warned of its problems prior to the breach but did nothing. Now they get to use their own money to improve their system most of which should have gone to the victims of their negligence. Premira also paid an additional $10 million to settle other state suits of Pemira's negligence.
Kahlon v Lehigh Valley Hospital
Filed
The patient sued the hospital for not safeguarding patient information. He claimed that Dr. Chung, a business partner with whom he was having a business argument, inappropriately accessed his records a dozen times. Pennsylvania also investigated and cited Leigh Valley that they did not safeguard medical records adequately.
Department of Justice v Allscripts
Settlement
Allscripts agreed to pay $145 million to settle allegations that its subsidiary Practice Fusion was not in comploiance withHIPAA. The problems happened prior to Allscripts acquiring Practice Fusion.
Patients v UnityPoint health
D Wisc
The judge dismissed some charges but left most intact for the patients who had their information breached in 2018.
Patients v U. of Missouri
Filed
Two class action suits were filed after employee email accounts were hacked. The information obtained included HIPAA information. About 14,000 people were involved. Top
Grant v Broward Health
Settlement
The saga of the folly of this hospital may finally be coming to a close but time will tell. The hospital has agreed to pay former CEO Pauline Grant $950,000 for being fired as the CEO. She was charged at that time with kickbacks by the general counsel with whom she did not get along. The board also approved legal fees of up to $1 million to attorneys who defended the board members against charges they broke open meeting laws. This is all public money that is being spent.
Rollins v Dignity Health
Settlement
The plaintiff sued because the pension plan was under funded. Dignity said they didn't have to fully fund it due to a religious exemption. They now will put in $50 million in 20230 and the same in 2021.
Mid Florida Cancer Centers v
AdventHealth (Florida Hospital)
Filed
Mid Florida is suing for unfair trade practices and antitrust after a judge disallowed their breach of contract claim. It is alleged that the hospital signed an exclusive contract with Florida Cancer Specialists to not compete with each other in several counties and stopped giving hospital privileges to Mid Florida physicians. The hospital says the contract was to provide more coordinated care and improve delivery. Florida Cancer has settled with Mid Florida. Mid Florida appears to have significant emails showing AdventHealth's anticompetitive conduct.
Foster v Henry Ford Hospital
Filed
Foster is a cancer patient and went to the hospital for neck pain. While in the ED waiting test results he laid down on a bed and fell asleep. Upon awakening he had bugs crawling all over him. This was due to clothing under the mattress. Top
Murphy v Greenky
Guilty
The plaintiff sued Dr. Brett Greenky of Syracuse, NY, of malpractice in the case of her hip replacement. This would be a routine case but it pointed out the practice of a physician leaving the surgery after completion of the main part of the case to do another case. In this case the patient was the 6th of 14 cases that day. In this case he was accused of fracturing the patient's femur and taking too much bone at surgery and not telling her for six weeks. The verdict was for $2 million and is under appeal.
Miller v Moses
Filed
Let us hope the estate of the plaintiff gets no more that $1 for the wrong sided surgery. That's what they deserve. An attending and a urology resident admitted they put a ureteral stent up the wrong ureter and then corrected their mistake the following day. BFD
Valentine v Plum Healthcare Group
Ca Ct App
The patient was admitted to the post Acute Care facility for rehab of a shoulder injury. Due to her injury her husband signed the admission information. During her stay she developed a UTI, sepsis and died. A lawsuit was filed and the facility filed for arbitration according to the admitting papers. Nope. the patient had her facilities and so her husband's signature was not valid for the children but wass for the husband. Since one could arbitrate and one could not then no arbitration. Top
Young v Cameron Regional Medical
Center
Filed
Plaintiff was fired after 14 years. She was an RN and had risen to the position of presurgery coordinator. The reason given by the hospital was the only RN position was night OB and she would not want the position. She says it is due to age and she was never offered a position.
Stephens v Portsmouth Regional
Hospital
Filed
The plaintiff states she pushed for more staffing in the ER for a year prior to her firing. The hospital states she was fired for being accused of helping a patient with mental health problems escape.
Elbaor v WhidbeyHealth
Settlement
The physician sued the Washington state hospital for age discrimination and settled for $1.5 million. He applied to the hospital for a position as an orthopedic surgeon and was refused due to presumed age discrimination. The recruiter said in an affidavit that he was told that the hospital was trying to get rid of older orthopods and have them replaced by younger ones. The hospital states he was turned down for other reasons but settled for the large sum. Why? Maybe because there were emails saying they should hire young hungry pods who will cut no matter what. The hospital was upset with one of their pods who didn't do as many surgeries as they wanted. Does not sound like an ethical hospital administration. Top
DISCLAIMER: Although this article is updated periodically, it reflects the author's point of view at the time of publication. Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. Readers should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the information presented.