Stories about physicians and other healthcare professionals involved in lawsuits—as either a plaintiff or a defendant—or accused of breaking the law. Various legal updates or unusual stories in the news may land here.
The Pennsylvania-based health system reported drug diversion incidents to authorities involving a pharmacy technician who used employee passwords to steal pills from one of its hospitals.
The pharmacy chain said it plans to appeal the ruling. The complaint was brought by a former employee turned whistleblower who alleged that Omnicare had billed the government for millions of unnecessary prescriptions.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the OIG and FBI are also involved in the DOJ's criminal probe into alleged incidents of upcoding by the Medicare Advantage insurer. UnitedHealth denied any wrongdoing.
Jawad Bhatti, MD, is facing a 26-count indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice after he allegedly advertised the use of ozone gas as a treatment for pain, then billed Medicare and Medicaid for the unapproved procedures.
John R. Manning, MD, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud for issuing unnecessary prescriptions billed to Medicare and receiving more than $812,000 in kickbacks.
UnitedHealth Group said it is seeking repayment of “interest-free” advances distributed to providers struggling during the shutdown of claims processing caused by the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare.
The academic medical center is accused of deploying lax security protocols that allowed an employee to access internet-connected cameras and private emails in acts of privacy invasion that lasted a decade.
Among the agencies impacted is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which released thousands of probationary workers as part of a staffing purge conducted by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Thomas J. Bryce, MD, purportedly only spent five minutes reading head and spine images of a 74-year-old who had experienced a fall, a fact harped on by winning plaintiff attorneys.
In issuing an injunction, a federal district court in Rhode Island ruled that states and their populations would suffer irreparable harm if the funds allocated by Congress were not granted to them.