January 1, 2023 Recent Legal News
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US v Andrecola
Paul Andrecola of Maple Shade, New Jersey, was sentenced to 5 years in prison and forfeiture of $2.74million. He was previously convicted of selling an unregistered pesticide for use as a Corona disinfectant.
California v Moazzeni
Indicted
Brody Amir Moazzeni, from Saratoga, California, was arrested for posing as a physician. He started up a romantic interest with a woman and convinced her to allow him to give her Botox. She became suspicious and reported him to the local police who have arrested him. They found that he had done the same thing to another woman in Miami, Florida. He had been arrested there but had the charges dropped after attending a diversion program.
Ohio v Massoud
Arrested
Dr. Omar Massoud was a gastroenterologist and head of hepatology at the Cleveland Clinic but was fired after he was arrested and an investigation showed he allegedly sexually assaulted three patients.
US v Starer
Indicted
Dr. Jacquelyn Starer, a physician from Ashland. Massachusetts, has been indicted for her part in the January 6 riot. She has been accused of illegally entering the Capitol building and punching a female police officer in the head.
Kansas v Bretz
Cited
It is the end of the year but the Kansas police have made the most idiotic citation of the year. They cited Greg Betz in his hospital room for using a weed vape and THC paste. Mr. Bretz has terminal cancer and uses the weed for pain relief and his physicians are OK with that. Top
US v Patel
Convicted
A federal jury convicted Minai Patel of Atlanta, Georgia, of fraud. He owned LabSolutions that performed genetic testing. He paid kickbacks for patients and billed fed med for the tests.
US v Gampel
Indicted
Yury Gampel DC owns many office based labs throughout the US. He allegedly illegally offered partnerships to physicans in order to induce them to refer patients to his labs.
Vazquez-Ramos v Triple-S Salud
1st Circuit
The plaintiff Urologists sued Triple-S, the private insurer for Puerto Rica's western region and MSO, the administer of the provider network of a Medicare Advantage Plan for antitrust violations. Tripe-s entered an exclusive arrangement with Urologics to provide services for the program. The district court allowed the motion to dismiss but the circuit reversed part of the ruling. The Circuit said the plaintiffs had antitrust standing. The plaintiffs used the market has the patients controlled by Triple-s not the entire market and the Circuit accepted that. As this is a very early stage of the litigation the 1st is allowing the case to continue. The court did allow the dismissal of the case against MSO for not defining the market.
US v Patel, Patel
Settlement
Dr. Vijesh Patel and his office manager wife Laju of Port Neches, Texas, agreed to pay just over $400,000 to settle allegations that they received illegal kickbacks for referring patients for lab testing. they have also agreed to testify for the feds.
US v Lonski
Guilty
Michael Lonski, a Greenwich, Connecticut psychologist, plead guilty to fraud. He billed insurers for services not rendered.
US v Sidana
Settlement
Dr. Jasdeep Sidana of Connecticut is the CEO of 20 facilities in the state. He and his facilities have agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle allegation that he and they billed for allergy services that were unsupervised or unnecessary.
US v Down, Constantine
Convicted
A federal jury convicted Dr. Andrew Dowd, a New York orthopod and George Constantine , a New York lawyer of fraud for their participation in a trip-and-fall scam. They paid cash kickbacks to runners who recruited "patient' to stage accidents around the city. The patients then went to the hospital and obtained discharge papers and took them to Constantine's office. He accepted these cases and then file suits against various establishments. He sent the patients to vaious places for MRIs and then to Down who would operate on them after giving kickbacks.
US v BioTelemetry, CardioNet
Settlement
The companies agreed to pay $44.9 million to settle allegations that they billed fed med for heart monitoring tests performed outside the United States.
US v Advanced Bionics LLC
Settlement
The company agreed to pay over $12 million for misleading fed health programs about the radio-frequency emissions generated by its cochlear implant processors. This was a qui tam suit. the originator was a company engineer and he received $1.87 million.
New York v DiMarco
Settlement
Dr. David DiMarco of Western New York state has agreed to pay the state over $2 million to settle allegations that he and his vein centers billed Medicaid for over 1000 procedures that were not adequately documented.
US v Dean
Guilty
Dr. Robert Dean of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, plead guilty of falsifying orders for knee braces for patient he never met via telemedicine. Top
Gomez v Braid
Texas County Court
Dr. Alan Braid was in court due to the Texas law that criminalizes doing abortions. He intentionally did an abortion and then wrote an oped about it. The actual plaintiff in this case was a suspended Illinois Attorney. Braid argued that the attorney had no legal standing to bring the suit as he was unaffected by the abortion. The court agreed with Braid and dismissed the suit. This is a real problem with the Texas law.
US v Pikesville Medical Center
Settlement
The Kentucky hospital will pay $4.4 million due to their lack of oversight and negligence that enabled a pharmacy tech to divert 60,000 doses of opioids.
Steinbach, Kliger v Massachusetts
Massachusetts Supreme Court
Drs. Roger Kliger and Alan Steinbach sued to allow physician assisted suicide in the state. The Court ruled that the state Declaration of Life did not protect physician assisted suicide and that manslaughter may prohibit the procedure. They also said this can be corrected by the state legislature.
Pennsylvania v Two Medical
Students
Cited
Two University of Pittsburgh medical students have been charged with abuse of corpse. One student by making comments about him while placing a hand in his chest and the other by touching a female corpse imappropiately while smirking and commenting.
Franciscan Health v Court
Filed
Hammond, Indiana Franciscan Health filed to lift the court ordered preliminary injunction forbidding it from closing its emergency room. They cited the danger in such an order due to closing of the rest of the 227 bed hospital to a 10 bed hospital. They also can not bill for services rendered in the ED due to lack of services as required by the state.
US v Willoughby, Jr.
Settlement
Dr. Walter Willoughby, Jr. of Las Vegas has agreed to pay a penalty to the feds plus $42,000 to an employee he illegally had fired due to her Mexican heritage.
Nurses v Aya, Maxim, NuWest, Cross
Country
Filed
The nurses involved are travel nurses and the defendants are staffing agencies. The nurses were promised high paying positions but as supply outpaced demand they had their hourly wage slashed at renewal time. The suit says it's bait and switch but they are really 13 week at will employees. There is no promise of the same pay after the first contract. The suit is probably a loser. Top
Patients v San Gorgonio Memorial
Hospital
To Be Filed
The California hospital had a cyber attack that lasted for almost two weeks before it was found. The perp got driver license and SS numbers as well as clinical information.
US v Au
Settlement
Brandon Au, DDS of California, paid $23,000 for disclosing PHI in response to negative reviews. He also agreed to two years of corrective action.
OCR v Health Specialists of
Central Florida, Inc.
Settlement
The entity will pay $20,000 for failure to to respect the HIPAA right of access standard. They did not provide a daughter, the deceased father's representative, timely access to medical records despite numerous requests. She got the records five months after first asking and after an OCR investigation.
Patients v Emory Healthcare
To Be Filed
An employee accessed 1600 patient records over a one year period for use in a unemployment benefit fraud. The employee is in custody and the question remains how did it take one year for the hospital to realize what was going on. Top
Awah v Holy Cross Hospital
USDC Maryland
After a dog bite the plaintiff called an ambulance which took him to Holy Cross. He alleges that he had a very long wait during which time he was asked if he could pay for the visit which he replied no. He was given a prescription for meds and discharged even though he was still complaining of paid and panic attacks. He sued for failure to screen under EMTALA and actually found a shyster to take the case. Let us hope he lost a huge amount of money bringing this suit.
Patients v Harlament
Filed
Seven former patients have filed suit against Dr. Edward Harlament of Indianapolis. He is alleged to have performed 44 heart caths and inserted 41 stents in one patient over nine years. Others have voiced similar complaints against the intervenional cardiologist. Where was the hospital?
Women v St. Mary's Hospital
Filed
Two women have filed suit against the Denver hospital for not protecting them. They claim they were assaulted in the ICU while unconscious by nurse Christopher Lambros. Lambros has been arrested for sexual assault. There is apparently a video of Lambros sexually abusing a female patient.
Adams v Texas Health Hospital
Flower Mound
Jury Verdict
Jessie Adams went to Premier Interventional Pain Management in Flower Mound for an epidural. After the shot she could not feel her legs and had severe back pain. She was observed for an hour or so at the clinic and an ambulance was then called. She went to the ED of the hospital and received an immediate MRI order but that did not start for an additional one hour and 37 minutes. The surgery to repair the probable spinal hematoma was started six hours post admission. She is paralyzed from the chest down. The jury awarded her $10.1 million.
Royston v University of Cincinnati
To Be Filed
The hospital is looking for the remains of twin girls that were stillborn. They have found remains are have done DNA analysis on them to see if they are the missing twins. The mother has been waiting for a month for the results. Top
Carter v VA
Filed
Stephanie Carter, a nurse at the Women's Health Department at the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, has filed a federal law suit against the VA due to the administration ordering the VA to provide abortion counseling and abortions. She says this is against her religion and she feels she can not work in an institution that provides those services. She has asked to not participate but was told there is no process in place in the VA to consider her requests. The VA in a press release says that those that want to opt out due to religion may. 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.