January 1, 2025 Recent Legal News
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Pennsylvania v Fox
Indicted
Dr. Kenneth Fox of Jenkintown was indicted for allegedly distributing narcotics illegally from his basement after he was fired from Jefferson Health.
US v Shafa
Sentenced
Dr. Rahim Shafa of Lexington, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 3 years in prison for international money laundering. He plead guilty to charges of illegally obtaining pellets from Hong Kong and implanted them in patients.
Texas v Colvin
Guilty
Dr. Jeffery Colvin of Lubbock, was found guilty of inappropriately touching a patient during an exam. The patient was a former employee and she said the anesthesiologist did an exam more than what she consented to. She was scheduled for a fat transfer procedure for breast augmentation. She agreed to have the pre-op exam performed in his office and not an exam room while the rest of the staff was at lunch. She then consented to an exam of her genitalia to assess if she was a candidate for labial augmentation. she was told she did not need the procedure. She then stated that he began making more advances to her and began rubbing her genitalia. She quit immediately and called the police three hours later.
Doe v Marks
Guilty
Dr. Thomas Marks of Claremont, New Hampshire, plead guilty of assaulting a patient. He will spend eight months in prison.
US v Tanzer
Indicted
Dr. Fredrick Tanzer of Ohio was indicted for lying to federal officers. This is in connection with a rape years earlier in Kansas where he allegedly was not truthful to the officers investigating the rape. The underlying state charges could not be pursued due the statue of limitations. He was found via a DNA sample that he left on a Starbucks cup.
US v Holuk
Settlement
Dr. Stephen Holuk of Three Rivers, Massachusetts, agreed to pay $220,000 in civil penalties for allegedly violating the CSA for writing prescription sor narcotics for no medical reason.
California v Hajhosseini
Arrested
Dr. Babak Hajhosseini of teh Los Angeles area was arrested for allegedly drugging women and raping them.
Arizona v De Luigi
Arrested
Dr. Arthur De Luigi, the chair of the Department of Physical Medicine at Mayo Clinic of Arizona was arrested for disorderly conduct after appearing drunk and pushing a woman to the ground at the WM Phoenix Open. Top
US v Contreras
Sentenced
Dr. Victor Contreras of Santa Paula, California, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for billing for medically unnecessary hospice procedures. He plead guilty to the above and said that his co-conspirator Juanita Antenor, the owner of several hospices, conspired to put patients on hospice that were not eligible. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $3,289,889, the total amount of the fed payout. Antenor remains at large.
US v Mazzare
Guilty
Dr. Mark Mazzare of Tyler, Texas, plead guilty to illegally purchasing OTC Covid tests and had them shipped to the Medicare beneficiary identifiers patients. He had illegally purchased the beneficiary identifiers.
US v Oroville Hospital
Settlement
The California hospital agreed to pay $10,250,000 to settle allegations that it submitted false claims to fed med for medically unnecessary inpatient admissions, an illegal kickback scheme and using wrong diagnosis codes. It is alleged that they billed for inpatient care when outpatient or observation status was more appropriate, they paid illegal bonuses related to volume to their full time physicians for doing more inpatients and billed for codes for diagnosis which the patient did not have. This is a qui tam case and she will receive $1,7 million.
US v Cornerstone Regional Hospital
Dismissed
The judge dismissed the suit by a medical device person who alleged that the Texas hospital allowed the billing to fed med fro procedures performed by unlicensed foreign physicians. In fact the Mexican physicians were invited guests by an ortho as part of an educational fellowship program.
US v Cardiology practices
Settlements
The feds accused 16 separate cardiology practices of overbilling for radiopharmaceuticals. The practices are Western Kentucky Heart an Lung Assoc $6.75 million; Heart Clinic of Paris $2.6 million; Scranton Cardiovascular Physician Services $2.37 million; Shannon Clinic $996,000; Edward Leahey $894,679; Metropolitan Cardiovascular Consultants $846,888; Cardiology Center of New Jersey $740,000; Clovis Cardiology $600,000; Family Medical Specialty Clinic $409,564; James Higgins $395,537; Trustcare Health $279,407; Taj Medical $240,000; White ui tam caseRiver Diagnostic Clinic $234,490; Veinguard Heart $195,000; Boulder Medical Center $160,000; Wellspring Cardiac Care $50,000. This all stemmed from a qui tam case by two people from DC and West Virginia. They will get $2.7 million.
US v Sentynl Therapeutics
Settlement
The Solana Beach, California, company agreed to pay $750,000 to settle allegations that they broke the Kickback statute by billing for meds after they hired the top physician's girlfriend as a sales rep. Top
Healthcare
Texas v Carpenter
Filed
Texas accuses Dr. Maggie Carpenter of New York of violating Texas law by providing abortion meds to Texas patients. They are seeking $250,000 in the civil trial. Even if he wins how is he going to enforce the judgment?
Purl v HHS
USDC Texas
Biden's order to force physicians to either report pr not report certain activities relating to abortion was like many of his other proclamations declared illegal and unenforceable.
Families v Lehigh Valley Health Network
Filed
An additional 12 families have filed suit against the employer of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen. They accuse the doctor of falsely diagnosing families with child abuse. She was accused of over-diagnosing Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Colorado ACLU v Children's Hospital Colorado
Filed
The ACLU is accusing the hospital of a violation of the state Anti Discrimination Law when it had a audacity to stop doing gender surgery after the patient's insurance had just authorized the procedure. Top
Malpractice
Doe v Hartgrove Hospital (Garfield Park Hospital)
Filed
Doe, an adult male age 35, is suing the hospital that he alleges allowed him to be sexually assaulted by the staff as a child.
Doe v UCSF
Settlement
UCSF agreed to pay Doe, a female, $15 million to settle the suit. This figure is so high because instead of medical malpractice the suit became one of battery for which the 1975 med mal law caps do not apply. The judge ruled earlier this year that the patient did not consent to the instillation of formalin into her uterus instead of an anesthetic.
Tong v Amazon One Medical
Filed
Tong coughed up blood and his feet turned blue. He called and had a video appointment with One Medical and was told to buy an inhaler. He died shortly after.
Corcoles v Sayeg
Verdict
The patient went to 63rd Medical and Surgical Center for lipo and what they found was Dr. Sayeg, a plastic surgeon, performing the surgery in his office. Post-op she had internal bleeding and died. The jury found for the plaintiff and awarded her family $66.262 million including post judgment interest. Top
Peer Review and Employment
West v Trinity Health Muskegon Hospital
Filed
Dr. Daniel West was a cardiologist at the hospital and chief of the hospital owned practice. A echo tech reported another cardiologist to West for what he believed was a misinterpretation of an ejection fraction that would allow the cardiologist to implant an ICD. West confronted the cardiologist but the cardiologist would not back down. West convened a group of cardiologists to review the record and they agreed with West. They went to administration who did noting. The peer review group then spent two years getting and reviewing records of the other cardiologist including getting the records from the medical device provider. They showed all that information the the administration who only cared about a potential HIPAA violation. They asked West and the others to destroy their copies of the information they provided to the AG. West did after he made sure the AG would retain the records. West was suspended and then fired for undisclosed reasons and is now suing.
Pinter-Brown v UC Regents
Award
Dr. Lauren Pinter-Brown had already won her suit against the group that runs UCLA and was awarded $14 million for sexual discrimination. The judge now tacked on an additional $4 million for attorney fees for the eight year litigation. 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.