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.
Hospitals are not the only healthcare entities competing over a limited pool of qualified compliance officers. Payers, vendors and others are in the race too. But hospitals and health systems may have the most to lose if they let down their guard on adherence to regulatory rules.
The owners of a local pharmacy in Mississippi have been ordered to pay back the money they stole from Medicare and Medicaid by billing for expensive prescriptions they never dispensed to patients.
An emergency department nurse at Heritage Valley Sewickley Hospital is accused of stealing drugs and neglecting patients, causing at least two fatalities. A lawsuit filed by two whistleblowers further alleges that hospital leadership covered for the drug-dependent nurse.
Led by Massachusetts and California, the plaintiffs say CMS ignored the will of Congress by strictly defining a “medically frail” exemption that would allow a person access to safety net medical coverage.
Radiologist Henry C. Lusane, MD, with Acumen Medical Imaging, interpreted the scans, reporting the mass as benign, a mistake later leading to a terminal cancer diagnosis.
The insurer is planning to reduce reimbursement timelines for hospitals in Oklahoma, Idaho, Minnesota and Missouri from 30 days to 15. The details are unclear, but the company said the framework could extend nationwide.
The California-based health system faced multiple accusations of upcoding diagnoses to receive additional risk-adjusted payments from the Medicare Advantage program. Its payer plan and providers were implicated in what the DOJ described as systemic fraud. Kaiser Permanente denies any wrongdoing.
A mother in Georgia alleges the problematic prenatal ultrasound findings forced her care team to make medical decisions resulting in her child being born with lifelong disabilities.
The traveling clinician pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree assault. All other charges were dropped, and he was released from jail. According to his attorney, the cardiologist agreed to this plea agreement to "get on with his life."
In a lawsuit, the EHR giant accuses Health Gorilla, et al., of posing as patient care entities to gain access to nearly 300,000 medical records, in violation of HIPAA. Health Gorilla vehemently denies the allegations.
The Wall Street Journal obtained a copy of a report from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reviewed more than 50,000 documents sent by UnitedHealth related to its Medicare Advantage patients. The outlet published the findings of the inquiry.
According to a new wrongful death lawsuit, members of the flight crew failed to pick up on a man's stroke symptoms, resulting in significant care delays. His family is now suing for damages in excess of $50,000.