July 1, 2019 Recent Legal News
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New York v Choy
Guilty
Dr. Lawrence Choy plead guilty of felony manslaughter by over prescribing opiods to three people. He had fled to avoid prosecution to Wisconsin but was found and returned to New York. He is going away for 7 years with a plea agreement.
Ohio
v Lazzerini
Guilty
Dr. Frank Lazzerini of Barberton, Ohio, was convicted of manslaughter and over prescribing drugs along with fraud. He prescribed drugs that killed a person and billed with wrong codes to get more money.
Illinois v Dehaan
Sentenced
Dr. Charles Dehaan of Rockford was sentenced to nine years in prison for molesting people in their homes during home health appointments. Some were physically handicapped. He is now in prison on federal charges.
Nebraska v Kwapniowski
Sentenced
Lisa Kwapniowski, the former pharmacy director of Children's Hospital in Omaha was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzling $4 million. She made up a phony drug and paid for it with hospital money. She had admitted her guolt previously.
Iowa
v Butikofer
Charged
Lon Butikofer and Mike Briggs, the forer CEO and former Development Director respectively, were indicted for theft. It is alleged that they took funds for trips and using the hospital credit card.
California v Tyndall
Charged
Dr. George Tyndall, the former USC Gyne, was charged with sexually assaulting 16 women. Of the 38 who have reported sexual assault by Dr. Tyndall most were either not substantiated to the level of a crime or outside the statute of limitations. Top
Entities v Purdue Pharma
Filed
A proposal has been filed in the federal court in Cleveland that would settle the payment for all the suits filed by every municipality in the country. Teh settlement would be in the billions and would face multiple legal challenges.
US v Hanfink
Settlement
Dr. Nathan Hanfink of Mt. Dora, Florida, has agreed to pay $911,000 to settle allegations that he made inappropriate referrals to Universal Oral Fluid Labs, a drug testing lab, and then falsely billed fed med. It is illegal to refer to a lab the you have an interest in under the Stark laws and then is against the False Claims Act.
US v Rosenberg
Sentenced
Benjamin Rosenberg DDS of LA was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in billing for crowns and fillings never provided. He had plead guilty of submitting false claims.
US v ACell Inc.
Settlement
The company plead guilty of criminal of causing false claims to be filed for a powder wound dressing MicroMatrix. They had a recall and did not inform the feds.
US v Gileno
Guilty
Paul Galeno, the former head of the US Pain Foundation has plead guilty of tax evasion and fraud for embezzling $1.5 million from the foundation.
US v Shah
Guilty
A jury convicted Dr. Samirkhumar Shah, a Pittsburgh Cardiologist, of fraud. He billed for $13 million in external counterpulsation therapy which was not needed. He did this on patients without chest pain or other symptoms of disease. The ding dong did it to treat impotence and other diseases and had his staff do it which is also against the law for billing.
US v Dannerman
Sentenced
Benjamin Dannerman of Eureka, Missouri, was sentenced to 57 months in jail for impersonating a nurse. He was actually hired as the assistant director of nursing at a hospital and as a nurse in others. He stole the identities of patients during this time. I do not understand how this could have occurred without negligence of the institutions.
US v Pacific Health Corp>
Default Judgment
In a strange case a nurse at Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, a subsidiary of Pacific Health, sued alleging they took unwilling patients to their locked unit for monetary gain. The defendant's counsel withdrew and they did not get a new counsel. Some of the defendants settled and the nurse filed a claim for default on the rest. The court found she did submit a claim alleging a fraud and granted the default judgment. The court awarded judgment in the amount of over $111 million in Medicare and over $75 million in Medicaid claims all then trebled then they awarded post judgment interest. The court then awarded the nurse 25% of that total or over $131 million.
US v Nevada Heart &
Cardiovascular Center
Settlement
The medical practice agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle claims it referred patients for genetic testing for kickbacks. They allegedly referred patients to two companies in exchange for payments to the practice which is against the anti-kickback statute.
US v The General Hospital Corp.
Refusal to Dismiss
The Massachusetts District Court refused to dismiss the claim that the hospital billed for concurrent surgeries which is against the Medicare rules. The suit is by an anesthesiologist at MGH. MGH allegedly sought payment for resident services when they were not being actively supervised during the concurrent surgeries.
US v Sharp
Indicted
Dr. Douglas Sharp, the medical director of Verimed Health in Houston was indicted alsong with Dr. Innad Husaini, the owner of Verimed and Hong Nguyen the former operator of Verimed. They are accused of money laundering and healthcare fraud. In an amazing statistic they billed for $16 million in claims and received about $12 million from Medicare and all of $67,000 from Medicaid. It is alleged that they billed for home health service, diagnostic tests and eye procedures that were not necessary.
US v Sultan
Arrested
Dr. Shahjahan Sultan, Dr. Thomas Sturdavant and two nurses Freda Covington and Fallon Page all of Mississippi were arrested in connection with the scam of prescription for expensive compounded creams which were not necessary.
US v University of
Pennsylvania
Settlement
The health system has agreed to pay $275,000 to settle allegations that they filed late for reimbursement under Medicaid for reading obstetric ultrasounds.
US v Schlifstein
Guilty
Dr. Todd Schlifstein, of Manhattan, New York, plead guilty of accepting bribes to prescribe Subsys, a felony under the anti kickback law.
US v Hart to Heart Ambulance
Service
Settlement
The Baltimore ambulance company agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle allegations that submitted false claims. It is alleged that they billed for medically unnecessary transportations.
US v Abarientos
Guilty
Dr. Crispin Abarientos of Middletown, Connecticut, admitted guilt in forging false names to Medicaid in order to be paid for Remicade falsely obtained. He then attempted to hide the scam from investigators.
US v Eggleston
Sentenced
Sophia Eggleston of Detroit was sentenced to 60 months in prison. she was a patient recruiter for a home health agency that billed for services obtained via kickbacks. She also was ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution. Top
FTC v Sanford Health
8th Circuit
The circuit affirmed a lower court ruling blocking Sanford Health merging with Mid Dakota Clinic. The merger was challenged by the North Dakota Attorney General for lowering access to medical services.
Doe v US
DC Circuit
The circuit court in a 2 -1 decision agreed with the ACLU that the feds could not block abortions on illegal teenagers in immigration custody across the board. In the O years abortions were not blocked and not paid for. This may be appealed.
Kennedy v Superior Ct
Ca Ct App
Dr. Ron Kennedy was subpoenaed by the Medical Board of California to turn over the records on the the children he provided vaccination exemptions. He requested a stay for an appeal. The appellate court denied the stay stating the need for the records outdid his need for privacy. Top
Patients v THH Pediatrics
To Be Filed
The Germantown, Maryland, group was notified by police that one of their nurses had been arrested for illegally accessing medical records and sending the information to others. They did not know and deserve a stiff fine.
MRO Corp v Humana
ED Penn
Humana routinely does post treatment audits and asks for medical records. Some providers send them directly and others work through release of information providers such as MRO. Humana then pays MRO for the copies. The rates are based on state rate provisions. There is no contract between the two and Humana attempted to reduce how much they were going to pay for the information. MRO sued and after multiple claims and counterclaims the suit can go forward.
Patients v Creighton University
To Be Filed
An error, whatever that may mean, by IT deleted patient records from the pharmacy. Now the database needs to be restored or actually rebuilt. Patients will need to to fill out new demographic data, physicians will have to call in new prescriptions and all data will need to be reentered.
Patients v Quest and Labcor
Filed
Two federal class action suits were filed in federal court against the two lab companies as well as the debt collector American Medical Collection. There was a breach at the collection agency and millions of people's identity and information was compromised.
Pennsylvania v Kalina
Sentenced
Linda Kalina the former patient care coordinator for UPMC was sentenced to one year in prison. She accessed over 100 patient files and disclosed them for revenge on a company that had fired her.
Patients v Community Healthlink
To Be Filed
UMass Memorial Community Healthlink in Massachusetts had a data breach of two email accounts. This compromised the PMI including SSN and diagnosis. They do not know if any information was actually viewed.
Dinnerstein v University of
Chicago and Google
Class Action Filed
The prior patient in the U. of Chicago Hospital filed a class action after the University and Google entered an agreement to share hundreds of thousand sof patient records. The suit claims that personalized information such as date stamps and doctors notes were transferred leading to the ability to identify the information.
Patients v Chatham Medical
Facility
To Be Filed
Multiple patient records were found in a Chicago lot and the feds are now investigating. Chatham closed after losing its medical license. Top
Women v Lawyers
Filed
You get what you reap. The women filed suits against mesh manufacturers and distributors for injuries. Now the women are suing their attorneys for taking too much from the settlements or stretching themselves too thin to do a good job on their cases. They contend the 40% class action fee violates state law. at 33%. Another suit contends the Texas attorneys took so many cases that they missed deadlines causing financial harm.
Patients v Porter Adventist
Hospital
Filed
Over 60 people are suing the hosoital for significant injuries related to sterilization problems. It is alleged that they knew of the jump in infection is early 2017 with an increased infection rate in their ortho procedures. The health department investigated and found 76 cases of contaminate surgical trays. They also accused Porter of not tracking infections data and changing their operations. Porter did send letters to patients in 2018 stating that ortho patients were at risk of infections. The attorney is attempting to connect all post surgical infections to the sterilization problems which is hard to do.
Hilburn v ?
Kansas Supreme Court
The state high court tossed the legislatures cap on non economic damages in PI suits. For some reason the cap violated the person's right to a jury trial.
Hillis v Mount Carmel Grove City
Filed
A second of many suits was filed against the hospital for Legionella infections. The hospital did not do the need things after the disease was discovered. This case is by a person who was just visiting the hospital.
BJP v Madiagan Army Medical Center
Guilty
he army admitted fault and the family was awarded $12.3 million. A surgeon activated an electrocautery as the anesthesiologist delivered a bust of oxygen to the patients mask. The boy got significant burns on one side of his face. and nose. The surgery was to remove a small benign cyst from the forehead. Top
Bergerson v University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center
Filed
Dr. Joseph Bergerson was a physician at the medical center under a two year employment contract. There were automatic one year renewals and a required six month notice the contract is to be terminated. His contract was terminated after several years. He is suing for the six months pay plus loss of incentive salary which he had been receiving. The case has gone to mediation. 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.