August 15, 2020 Recent Legal News
 | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
US v Ammar
Guilty
Dr. Tameshwar Ammar in Roslyn, New York, plead guilty to illegally distributing oxycodone. He has relinquished his medical license and agreed to pay just over $245,000. He would write scripts for oxy without any medical need. Top
US v Ligotti
Indicted
Dr. Michael Ligotti of Delray Beach, Florida, was indicted for healthcare fraud. He is accused of being part of by authorizing unneeded drug urine tests and receiving kickbacks for his services.. He was the "Medical Director" of over 50 addiction treatment facilities and had standing orders for the drug tests in them all. These tests were then never looked at by him. He is also accused of over prescribing Suboxone.
US v Bausch Health
Settlement
The company agreed to pay $45 million to settle allegations that they filed misleading SEC regulatory filings. This company used to be Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Several officers also paid penalties.
US v New York City
Settlement
The City and CSC agreed to pay a total of $2.775 million to settle allegations that they did not bill private insurers for treatments prior to billing Medicaid. This was for early intervention programs for speech and PT for young children.
US v Pacira Pharmaceuticals
Settlement
The company agreed to pay $ 3.5 million to settle allegations that they paid kickbacks to physicians in bogus research grants so they would prescribe its medication Exparel. They required the physician's hospitals to put the med on their formulary and then never followed up with the research studies.
US v Indivior
Settlement
The company agreed to pay $%600 MILLION to settle criminal and civil liability in the marketing of Suboxone. They plead guilty o to one count felony of giving false statements relating to health care matters. They also settled the civil liability of filing false claims. This brings the total paid for their misadventures to about $2 BILLION.
California v AbbVie
Settlement
The company agreed to pay $24 million to settle allegations that they interfered wwith the insurance regualtions of th e state over their drug Humira.
US v Nobbe
Indicted
Dennis Nobbe of Miami was indicted for wire and health care fraud. The chiropractor allegedly paid bribes to other providers to open credit card merchant accounts and then asked his own patients to apply for credit cards. He then charged charged thousand s of dollars, it is alleged, for services never provided on these cards leaving the patients in debt.
US v Jackson
Indicted
Michelle Jackson of Fairhope, Alabama, was indicted on charges of issuing medially unnecessary compounded drug and other prescriptions and receiving kickbacks.
US v Tcruz
Indicted
Isabel and Noli Tcruz of Washington Township Michigan were indicted for tax evasion and health care fraud. They owned home health agencies and did not pay income taxes but did pay kickbacks according to the indictment.
Williams v Wadley Regional Medical
Center
Filed
The plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle accident when another vehicle hit the car in which she was a passenger. She was taken to the hospital and informed them of her insurance carrier Blue Cross. The hospital listed their billing contractor Medical Reimbursement of American (MBA) as her primary insurer. The hospital then listed her as self-pay. Her bill came to just under $10,000. The hospital attempted to collect this from the insurance of the other driver. The amount charged is higher than the Blue Cross would have paid. This is to be a class action suit for fraud.
US v Advanced Care Scripts
Settlement
The Florida pharmacy will pay $3.5 million to settle charged they were a shill for Teva Pharmaceuticals in paying kickbacks to patients for prescriptions. Top
American Hospital Assn. V US
DC
The administration won another suit filed by the hospital organization. The court ruled that the administration has the authority to reduce subsidies Medicare pays hospitals when they obtain 340B drugs.
Quinn Emmanuel etc v US
Filed
The attorney firm wants to get a huge payday. They are asking for $185 million in fees for a case they did not argue. In another case the court awarded insurers about $12 billion for risk sharing programs.
Open MRI v Cigna
Filed
The radiology lab is suing the insurer for wrongfully denying payments as underpayments and without elaboration. Top
Patients v Foundation Surgical
Hospital
To Be Filed
The dummies at the physician owned hospital in San Antonio by error posted 1200 patients information instead of posting average hospital charges and did not know it until someone told them months later.
Patients v Ashley County Medical
Center
To Be Filed
A former nurse acessed illegally the medical records of 772 patients. How was this allowed?
Patients v U. of Maryland Medical
Center
To Be Filed
Almost 34,000 patients had their information exposed due to an unauthorized user hacking the system. This occurred in February and not reported for months. Top
US v Geisinger
Filed
Geisinger wants to purchase a 30% ownership in Evangelical Community Hospital. The problem is that Evangelical is a close competitor and that would alter the competitive atmosphere in the Lewisburg, Pennsylvania area.
Willmeng v United Hospital
Filed
Most hospital administrators are not bright but some are really dumb. The one at the St. Paul hospital must be in the latter category for allowing a RN to be fired from his job as an ED nurse and wearing hospital scrubs while caring for Covid patients that the hospital has to launder. Could there be another reason for the firing? He and another nurse who was also fired for an equally dumb reason of watching a training film at home remotely instead of coming to the hospital to see it are both union stewards. The hospital is part of Allina Health which is notoriously known for their anti-physician stance may be now branching out to union nursing.
Pastore v Hackensack Meridian
Health
Filed
Pastore, the former director of physician recruitment at the hospital and a proud Italian-American, was fired after hearing that a Black Lives matter mob was to take down a Columbus statue. She went to the rally to help protect the statue and she wore a Trump hat. Someone took her picture of her waving goodbye to the mob and posted it as her giving the Nazi salute. The twitter mob then pressured the hospital and she was fired. The hospital then had the misfortune to tweet and re-tweet messages implying she had given the Nazi salute. When will the nonsense end? Top
Ruloph v Mercy Hospital Fort Smith
WD Ark
Patient had a dislocated left knee and went to ED at Mercy Fort Smith. They found she needed vascular surgery and they did not have a vascular surgeon. they called Washington Regional and were erroneously informed they had a vascular surgeon. In transit to Washington, an hour ride, it was found they did not have a vascular surgeon and the patient was air evaced to Mercy in Springfield, Missouri. She lost her leg there due to due to the time without blood flow. She sues Mercy Fort Smith under EMTALA. The court allowed the case to go forward at this point.
Patients v J&J, etc
Filed
The trial lawyer scum is at it again. This time they are suing several pharmaceutical companies over Elmiron. The interstitial cystitis drug is alleged by them to have caused significant visual problems and the scum say the companies knew and hid the information.
Seretskiy v Sutter Roseville
Medical Center
Filed
The patient was admitted for surgery to remove renal stones but the next day the 81 year old was in ICU covered with bruises, comatose and paralyzed after surgery for a brain hemorrhage. The patient's son state they have never been told what happened and states that her medical record was erased. Hope they have a good explanation or a lot of zeros on the check. 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.