December 15, 2021 Recent Legal News
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Texas
v Fernandez
Arrested
Dallas, texas, Lisa Fernandez was arrested for causing the death of another by injection liquid silicon into her buttocks. This caused a pulmonary embolism. She also admitted doing this prior to the same patient and to others. She is no licensed and is charged with manslaughter.
US v Prophitt
Sentenced
Elizabeth Prophitt, CRNA of Saline, Michigan, a former employee at the Ann Arbor VA was sentenced to three years probation for stealing controlled substances from the hospital. She used her postiton as a surgical nurse to steal the meds for her own use. Top
US v Conley, Jr.
Settlement
Willie Conley, Jr. of Pembroke, Georgia, the owner of a pharmacy will pay $275,000 to settle allegations that he disopensed narcotics in spite of the the presence of red flags on prescriptions written by a convicted pill mill physician.
US v Haines
Guilty
Teri Haines of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, plead guilty of illegally obtaining DNA samples at county fairs and sending them for analysis. She bribed a physician, who has since been convicted, for using his name and credentials to try to give the samples credibility.
US v Bishai
Settlement
Dr. Emad Bisai, a pain management physician in Woodlands, Texas, has agreed to pay $523,331 to settle allegations that he falsified applications for PPP loans. He also agreed to a 7 year banishment from fed med.
US v Johnson
Sentenced
Dr. Moses de-Graft Johnson of Tallahassee, Florida was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to dong unnecessary surgical procedures and falsifying medical records in order to bill for procedures he did not perform.
US v Kemprud
Convicted
Dr. Edmund Kemprud of Dublin, California was convicted on 14 counts of illegally prescribing narcotics to patients for non-medical reasons. He will be sentenced at a later date.
US v Murali
Sentenced
Dr. Ravi Murali of Edgerton, Wisconsin, had plead guilty to fraud. He participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare by writing prescriptions for DME equipment that was not needed. He was sentenced to 54 months in prison for this.
US v Palacios
Guilty
Habib Palacios of Miami, Florida, plead guilty to distributing controlled substances. He is the owner of a strip mall pain clinic that dispensed pills for money. Patients paid several hundred dollars per prescription and he paid the physicians $60 per prescription written. The doctors charged are John Cosby, Alan Swartz, Nancy Garcia, Kerry Lane Jorge Gaviria and Dr. MB.
US v Bolos
Guilty
Peter Bolos, the owner of a pharmacy in Tampa, Florida, was found guilty by a jury on the charges of faking the billing for meds.
US v Gibbs, Hirjee, Little
Sentenced
Dr. Mark Gibbs and Laila Hinjee and RN Tammie Little were sentenced for their role in healthcare fraud. The three were Novus Health Services Medical Directors and their nurse. They had been found guilty of lying by certifying face to face exams of patients which never occurred. Gibbs was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to pay over $27 million. Hirjee was sentenced to 10 years and ordered to pay over $16 million. Little was sentenced to 33 months in prison. The two physicians also pre-signed narcotic prescriptions.
US v Newton
Sentenced
Angelita Newton of Chicago, worked at a home health company Care Specialists. She participated in a home health fraud scam and was sentenced to 56 months in prison.
US v Benson
Settlement
Dr. Eric Benson of Post Falls, Idaho, agreed to pay $110,000 for unlawfully prescribing opioids.
US v Baird
Sentenced
Dr. John baird of Louisville, Kentucky, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $567,609 in restitution for his part in receiving money for referrals to a lab for drug testing.
US v Kibirige, Agomo
Sentenced
Drs. Mustapha Kibrige and Emelike Agomo ophthalmologists in the Houston area were sentenced to pay $170 million in penalties for triple damages on almost 15,000 false claims. They billed for a higher code than allowed for eye pressure measurements for glaucoma. This is a whistleblower suit.
US v McCollum
Guilty
Daniel McCollum, DO, admitted billing for unnecessary procedures and paying illegal kickbacks. This is another whistle blower suit.
US v Murali
Sentenced
Dr. Ravi Murali of Edgerton, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for writing fake orders for DME.
US v Quincy Medical Group
Settlement
The Illinois medical group agreed to pay $500,000 to settle allegations that they submitted claims for medically unnecessary procedures by a physician employed by blessing Hospital.
US v Flower Pound Hospital
Settlement
The Texas hospital agreed to pay $18.2 million to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by repurchasing the hospital shares owned by physicians 63 and older and resold them to younger physicians. The shares were sold to those who would refer the most patients to the hospital. This was a qui tam case by a physician at the hospital.
US v Whitten
Sentenced
Dr. Thomas Whitten of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for accepting kickbacks from Insys in return for prescribing Subsys. He also wrote prescriptions for patients he had never seen at a weight loss clinic.
US v Princeton Pathology Services
Settlement
The New Jersey medical practice agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle allegations that they billed Medicare using wrong codes. The whistleblower physician got almost $500,000 for his retirement.
US v Snipas
indicted
Bruce Snipas. a pharmacist in Queens, was indicted for making false statements and accepting kickbacks.
US v Minga
Sentenced
Phillip Minga of Amory, Mississippi, was sentenced to 78 months in prison for health care fraud. He is also excluded from Medicare for 10 years.
US v Doganyan, Arutyunyan
Indicted
Oganes Doganyan and Kristine Arutyunyan og the Glendale, California area were indicted for billing for hospice services that were not medically necessary.
US v Gibson Area Hospital
Settlement
The Illinois hospital will pay $292,000 for failing to return overpayments it received.
US v Valdes
Indicted
Armando Valdes, the owner of Miami's Gasiel Medical Services, was indicted for allegedly submitting over $38 million in false claims for infusions of Remicade which were medically not indicated.
US v Woroboff, Willard, Mills, Thu
Indicted
David Woroboff, George Willard and Randall Mills were high level employees of a telemedicine company and Dr. Le Thu were indicted for paying kickbacks for prescriptions for compounded prescriptions that were not medically necessary. Top
Marik v Sentara Norfolk General
Hospital
Filed
Dr. Paul Marik, the chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the hospital and a author of a retracted article on his hospital treatment for Covid filed suit against the hospital for their banning the use of certain therapies. This is really an ivermectin. After filing his suit he lost his hospital privileges for two weeks, not enough to be reported.
NIH v Moderna
Filed?
Moderna holds multiple patents on the Covid vaccine that is now used for Covid prevention. NIH wants to be named as co-inventor on the patents even though they did none of the final work on the product. Moderna has offered then the co-ownership and the NIH has not responded.
Ohio v CVS, Walgreen's, Wal-Mart
Fed Dist Court
After several cases against drug companies were tossed in other jurisdictions on the issue of public nuisance, this federal jury found the three guilty of contributing to the opioid epidemic under the same public nuisance theory. The three will appeal.
US v McDonald
Indicted
Tammy McDonald, the Nursing Director at a SNF, was indicted for making false Covid Vaccination Record Cards. She plead guilty.
States v Biden
Order
The administration lost multiple law suits relating to their Covid mandate. One judge order that in 10 states the mandate for healthcare workers and another did it for for the rest of the country. Another jusge blocked the mandate from the federal contracts.
US v University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Payment
The Texas school has been ordered to pay $4.5 million for violating the Controlled Substance Act. This is due to two nurses found dead in the bathrooms with Fentanyl overdosing. The school did not control narcotics closely and therefore allowed the people to steal and use the drugs.
TeamHealth v UnitedHealhcare
Jury
TeamHealth sued the insurer for under payments. The jury agreed and awarded TeamHealth $2 million on a $10 million claim. the jury will decide on punitive damages later.
We The Patriots USA v Hochul
US Supreme Court
The organization sued to stop the New York requirement stating healthcare providers be vaccinated against Covid on behalf of 20 workers who say they have religious objections. The Court left the requirements in place without comment in a 6-3 vote. Top
HHS v Providers
Settlements
The feds have settled against the following providers for their lack of right to access of patient records. Advanced Spine and Pain Management in Cincinnati paid $32,150, Retina Center of Denver paid $30,000, Robert Glaser MD of New Hyde park, New York, paid $100,000, Rainrock treatment Center of Eugene, Oregon, paid $160,000 and Wake Health Medical Group of Raleigh, North Carolina, paid $10,000. All also have a one yer monitoring or agreed to take corrective action.
Sloane v Commonwealth Pain and
Spine
Kentucky County Court
Brent Sloane was involved in an auto accident in 2011 and was a patient at the Clinic from 2014 until 2021. He was paralyzed and had severe chronic pain. In 2017 he had surgery in San Diego and then entered a rehab unit there. Upon returning to Louisville he sought care at a hospital ED for a dislocated hip and ulcer and was prescribed a small amount of pain meds and told to follow-up sit the Clinic after discharge. He called the Clinic and requested a prescription but was refused because the physician needed to see the California records. Sloane faxed the records to the Clinic but the physician still refused to fill the prescription because the documentation was not recent. Sloane then killed himself and the family sued the Clinic. The family won $7 million. The clinic said that after his surgery he was huge doses of meds and they put him back on what he was on prior but he went through the prescription too fast. This could be a watershed case as it is one of the first to hold someone legally responsible for attempting to not give narcotics and do things responsibly. This may tell pain clinics to loosen up on giving meds in spite of state and fed laws, putting them in a real bind. A lot of this case rested on whether or not Sloane was tapered off his high dose. The plaintiff said this was malpractice to taper to 50% instead of 10% of the prior dose. The defense this was not a taper but intentional to move him back to his baseline dose. Difficult case but one with teaching attributes.
Toombes v Mitchell
Filed
In another strange case Evie Toombes of Great Britain is a 20 year old with spina bifida who is suing her mother's physician for not emphasizing the importance of zinc prenataly in the prevention of spina bifida. She say that if he had her mother would not have become pregnant and a different child with no spina bifida would have been born at a later time. Will anyone believe this? Top
Natarajan v St. Joseph's Medical
Center, a Dignity Hospital
Filed
Dr. Sundar Natarajan was an internist at the Stockton, California, hospital who lost his privileges. His suit claims that the California law violates the US Constitution and wants his privileges returned. He was the medical director at the hospital. His contract was not renewed so he started his own hospitalist group at the hospital. The hospital wanted to purchase the group but he would not sell. The hospital then came after him for record keeping and during his hearing he claims he was denied a neutral hearing officer. He lost his privileges and is suing in federal court.
Nulph v Houston Healthcare
Filed
Dr. Rick Nulph, was the director of the ED at the system's Perry Hospital in Georgia via a placement by an arm of ApolloMD. He claims after Houston ordered a no admit policy for "city call" patients for 10 days who are mostly uninsured. Dr. Nulph said he raised concerns since this is against EMTALA and filed a formal complaint with HHS. He was then removed as director and had all shifts taken away. He says Houston demanded ApolloMD terminate its agreement with him which the company acceded to. He is now suing.
Canning v Creighton University
US Supreme Court
The high court refused to hear the case where the physician sued stating that the hospital removed her from her residency for age discrimination and not for a medical reason. The 57 year old first year medical resident was on probation when she discharged a DVT patient without a prescription for an anticoagulant. 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.