March 15, 2018 Recent Legal News
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US
v Hernandez
Sentenced
Ana Hernandez of Monterey Park, California, plead guilty of a violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. She was also ordered to pay restitution of $90,000 and an additional $30,000 to the victim. She had been accused of injecting a foreign substance of some kind into the buttocks of another woman leading to the victim requiring skin grafts. The liquid used was smuggled by her from Mexico into the country. She had used the liquid on about 54 clients.
Iowa v Penney
Filed
Two nursing assistants have been arrested for having sex with mental health patients. Lynn Johanningmeir and Megan Penney were arrested and charged with sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist or school employee. The problem will be that neither woman was employed at the time of the incident. Top
US v Montana
Guilty
Dr. Eduardo Montana agreed he was guilty of violating the HIPAA and fraud. He pled guilty to providing a Aegerion sales rep a list of 280 patients under his care who might benefit from a drug they made.
US v Omidi
Indicted
The feds are finally arresting Drs.
Julian Omidi and Mirali Zarrabi of the LA area for fraud. The two were
behind the 1 -800- GET-THIN billboards that blanketed southern California five
years ago. The company did lap-band surgery for weight reduction.
They are now up on fraud charges for doing sleep studies and reporting falsely
to insurance companies to get payments for the surgery. Omidi had
his license revoked in 2009 but ran the business.
US v Dent III
Guilty
A South Carolina man Floyd Dent III of Lexington, SC, was found guilty of paying illegal kickbacks to physicians to order unnecessary blood tests from the now disgraced Health Diagnostics Lab and Singulex of Alameda, CA. Dent plus co-conspirators Robert Johnson of Hanceville, Alabama and LaTonya Mallory of Richmond, VA. were found guilty by a jury.
US v Diaz
Convicted
Dr. Albert Diaz of Biloxi was convicted of falsely prescribing compounds to patients and then billing fed med for the cost.
US v Ioannides
Settlement
Dr. Tim Ioannides and his company Treasure Coast Dermatology in Vero Beach agreed to pay the feds $2.5 million to settle allegations that he billed for procedures not performed and for billing for removing skin growths with liquid nitrogen which had not been done. He billed for many skin flaps which were never done. This is a whistleblower suit by a former patient.
US v UPMC and Medicor Associates
Settlement
The hospital and the cardiology group in Erie Pennsylvania agreed to pay the feds almost $21 million to settle allegations of kickbacks being paid by the hospital to the medical group for referring patients. Harmot Hospital paid Medicor over $2 million per year under service agreements with the physicians to get referrals. Some of these wee duplicates or not performed. This is a whistleblower suit by a physician who worked at Medicor for four years. He will get over $6 million for his filing suit.
US v Abiomed Inc
Settlement
The company agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle allegations that they bribed physicians to use their heart pumps. they did this by buying dinners for them in the best restaurants in the country. They included Eleven Madison Park in New York, Nobu in LA, Spago in Beverly Hills and Menton in Boston. These meals included the physician spouses. The whistle blower will receive $542,000 plus have the attorney fees and costs paid. His suit against the company for wrongful term continues.
US v Rosenberg
Sentenced
Dr. Jerrold Rosenberg in Rhode Island was sentenced to over four years in ail for taking kickbacks from Insys Therapeutics to prescribe fentanyl to people who did not need the drug. He go $188,000 in speaker fees that was actually a kickback. He must also pay $754,736 in restitution. Top
Romero v Romero
LA Judge
In a Terry Schiavo type case the patient Juan Fernando Romero went into a persistent vegetative state and his wife wants to pull the plug. The wife is being sued by the patient's sister to take the power of decision making from her. There is no end of life document in place. The court ruled the wife has the final say even without a document in accordance with the California Health Care Decisions Law.
Massachusetts v US
DC Mass.
In a reversal of two earlier district courts this judge ruled that Massachusetts could not block rules by the administration to allow exemptions for religious or moral grounds from Ocare rules requiring coverage for birth control. He showed how Massachusetts was different from California and Pennsylvania. Top
New York v EmblemHealth
Settlement
EmblemHealth agreed to pay $575,000 for their breach of HIPAA for inadvertently mailing out information that included SSNs. Top
Massachusetts Nurses Assoc. v
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Superior Court Judge
The judge dismissed the suit against the hospital for their flu policy. He ruled that the Association had no standing. Top
Patients v Allina Health
To Be Filed
Allina Health hired a nurse practitioner in their derm clinic. That NP reused the syringes, not the needles, on multiple patients. Allina has notified just over 160 about the error. The NP doe not work at Allina any longer.
Gilmore v Holland
MD Pa
In a waste of money and resources an attorney sued Geisinger for EMTALA violations after complications from an inpatient procedure. He erroneously thought the complications gave a new emergency condition and more money for him. Inpatients are not covered under EMTALA. Period.
Patients v Halford and Rational
Vaccines
Filed
In one of the most egregious cases I have ever read about three people are suing a Southern Illinois University researcher and his company for being injected with herpes vaccine without any oversight. Professor William Halford injected Americans in St. Kitts and Nevis and in Illinois hotel rooms with experimental herpes vaccine. This is like the terrible syphilis study many years ago. Top
Great Britain v Bawa-Garba
Guilty
The US is not alone with sham peer review. All know it exists in today's hospitals and medical groups of the US. In GB Dr. Bawa-Garba, a pediatric registrar, was in charge of the entire department as her colleagues were at a meeting and her supervisor was in a different town. She was asked to see a 6 year old male with Down's who was sent in by the GP for GI symptoms who had a past history of a repaired atrioventricular canal defect and was on enalapril. She recognized dehydration and treated him with a bolus with reasonable results. She also ordered a chest x-ray. She did not see the x-ray for 6 hours. There is no radiologist available due to the NHS not paying for one. The x-ray showed pneumonia and she ordered antibiotics. An hour later she presented the patient to her consultant and he agreed with the treatment but did not see the child. Somehow the child got enalapril (never ordered and contraindicated) and had a cardiac arrest and died. He actually had strep sepsis but no fever. She was tried and convicted of manslaughter and then had her residency revoked and finally the General Medical Council took her license. No one ever said anything about her supervisor nor the system that allows this to occur. The NHS was at fault as was the supervisor. There is no need to crucify a resident in training as they are indeed in training.
Harris v Queen's Medical Center
Plaintiff Verdict
The former nurse Ellen Harris was awarded $4 million. She alleged that she found a noose image taped in her locker in the Honolulu hospital. This did not sit well with the black female who had reported patient safety concerns to management in the past. Queens states they will appeal. They will not but will settle.
Medical Board of California v
Superior Court
Ca App Ct
The medical board filed suit when the trial court agreed with a Dr. Alfred Adams that the revocation of his license for drug use was illegal since he never received the certified mail sent to his address of record. The appellate court reversed and said he was properly served as the letter was certified and only non certified would be improperly served. They went on in the case of Selvidge v Tang, a med mal case, where Tang says he was not properly served because a letter sent prior to the statute of limitation to his address of record at the Board being not received. The court again overruled the lower court and stated the in med mal cases all that is needed is intent to notify not actual notification.
Blickman v University of Rochester
Medical Center
Filed
Dr. Johan Blickman, a pediatric radiologist, was accused by a former medical resident of plotting to kill his wife and forcing the resident to have sex with him. He was placed on leave by the university. He has now sued the woman for defamation stating the two of them had consensual sex. The woman sued for $30 million and he has countersued for $60 million. 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.