Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

We have been closely following the case of medical fraud at the St. Joseph Medical Center involving the prominent heart doctor who exposed hundreds of patients to unnecessary stent procedures. The surgeon at the center of the scandal is accused of telling patients that they needed stents inserted into their hearts, even though they didn’t, all to raise his own profile and increase his pocketbook.

Now, the Baltimore Sun is reporting that depositions in the case have revealed that the doctor admitted that salespeople for the stent-makers were allowed inside cardiac treatment rooms—a clear violation of hospital rules and patient privacy.

Abbott Laboratories employees developed a cozy relationship with the heart doctor—raising questions about the influence that those salespeople have on medical care and product choice. A state Senate committee already admitted that the relationship between the doctor and the medical manufacturer may have “indirectly encouraged [the doctor] to intensify his use of stents, with unfortunate results.”

The stents costs patients $10,000 or more, require risky surgery, and place patients at increased risk for a variety of other problems. The doctor is this case was caught implanting hundreds unnecessarily, but experts believe that wasteful stent procedures are a nationwide problem.

Continue reading "Unnecessary Stent Doctor Admits Allowing Salespeople Into Surgery Room" »

Vanity Fair recently posted a story of a doctor who has been dubbed the worst in America. The negligent physician is accused of harming hundreds of patients over his years in practice before fleeing the county.

The Indiana surgeon has a mind-boggling 350 malpractice lawsuits pending against him. The types of errors made are too many to mention, but it seems that the doctor essentially operated a permanently fraudulent operation. Patients would visit the doctor, CAT scans were shown that were not even of the correct patient, and then surgery would be recommended. The CAT scans were shown to scare the patients into thinking surgery was necessary. All that mattered to the doctor was the fact that more surgeries meant more money in his pocket. The unnecessary surgeries involved outdated processes that put hundreds of patients at risk for no reason.

The doctor built his clinic in the tiny Indiana town of Merrillville because the area was filled with working-class citizens who worked hard and had health insurance. In other words, the area was full of individuals who the doctor thought he could exploit for his own gain.

Unfortunately, after pleading guilty to 22 counts of medical fraud, the doctor fled to Europe. He remains in exile, hiding from the hundreds of pending lawsuits and millions of dollars in debt. The negligent doctor’s victims remain without any recourse.

Continue reading "Unique Story Highlights the “World’s Worst Doctor”" »

In August on this blog we discussed the egregious case of medical fraud and abuse of Dr. Mark G. Midei. The doctor, a former star cardiologist at the St. Joseph Medical Center, was found to have performed hundreds of heart procedures unnecessarily. Medical records were falsified to make it appear that patients had clogged arteries when they did not.

The Baltimore Sun reports that this week saw the filing of over 100 claims in the arbitration hearings with St. Joseph Medical Center stemming from the situation. The victims are claiming that the hospital is responsible for the conspiracy, negligence, and fraud perpetrated by their medical staff. Many involved in the case of Dr. Midei believe that this problem is common at other hospitals throughout the country—investigations at several other facilities are already underway. Another doctor in Louisiana did the same thing just last year, earning him 10 years in federal prison.

The situation is most ripe for abuse with stent replacements. As in this case, doctors can often insert these mesh stents into the healthy veins of unknowing, trusting patients. The patients are then exposed to the risks of the procedure itself, the necessity to take expensive medication with dangerous side-effects, and the emotional anguish that always comes with these health issues.

Our Chicago medical malpractice lawyers at Levin & Perconti remain as appalled as the rest of society about these cases of deception and medical fraud. It is a tragic reality that some in the medical profession continue to place so little value in the health and well-being of the patients that seek their help and counsel. There is no excuse for allowing hundreds of innocent victims and their families undergo the hardship and risk of heart procedures unnecessarily. If you or anyone you know may have suffered any problematic medical care, please contact a medical malpractice attorney immediately.

Please Click Here to read more about this and similar case of medical abuse.

Long-term acute care hospitals have been in operation nationally for the first 25 years. There are more than 400 long-term facilities nationwide. Most are owned by for-profit companies and few of them have doctors and staff. Two large owners of nursing homes are Select Medical Corporation and Kindred LTC hospitals. Many of these companies are plagued with medical malpractice lawsuits and poor state inspections. For example, in 2007 and 2008 Select’s hospitals were cited at a rate almost four times that of regular hospitals for Medicare violations. In the last three years, inspectors have found 22 violations of care standards at 12 Select hospitals. This could lead Medicare to ban those hospitals from admitting Medicare patients.

Long-term care hospitals have a higher incidence of bedsores and infections than regular hospitals. Many of the patients that reside in these hospitals are extremely sick. Despite the fact that they are in stable condition, they tend to be on dialysis or need a ventilator. If they require emergency care, they must be transported back to a general hospital. To learn more about the problems associated with long-term care, check out the New York Times article.

Kindred Health Care owns a number of long-term facilities in Illinois including locations in Sycamore and Northlake. These hospitals may fall into the problems associated with long-term health care facilities such as an emphasis on profits over patient care. If you believe that your loved one is being neglected at a long-term health care center, please consult a medical malpractice lawyer.

A large legal settlement has resulted due to negligent overpricing that came from the company Kyphon Inc. The company engaged in fraudulent medical device sales by inflating the prices of equipment used in back surgery. Patients who underwent back surgery known as kyphoplasty as a result were paying higher prices for the surgery. Negligent doctors and negligent hospitals were keeping patients overnight to increase the costs of the medical procedures. As a result Medicare costs increased and the large legal medical settlement has placed 75 million dollars in the hands of the federal government to settle the legal case. To read more on this story click here.

The Medicare program may soon stop paying for more medical care that comes as a result of hospital error. In an effort to encourage hospitals to improve their patient care and avoid medical malpractice lawsuits, hospital infections, and hospital patient injury, Medicare announced last year that it would stop funding certain procedures and treatments. Now Medicare has added more potential preventable errors to the list.

Medicare may stop funding for these common hospital errors and preventable injuries:
-Surgical site infections following certain elective procedures
-Deep vein thrombosis/Pulmonary Embolism
-Legionnaires’ disease
-Extreme blood sugar derangement
-Lung Collapse resulting from medical treatment
-Ventilator-associated pneumonia
-Delirium
-Staph infection in the bloodstream
-Disease associated with Clostridium difficile infection

Medicare’s logic is that hospitals will stop making preventable errors and preventable patient injuries if the hospital won’t get paid for the error. Hospitals used to be paid for every consult and procedure but Medicare believes that not funding for preventable error will encourage hospitals to improve patient care to protect their bottom line.

Read more on these proposed changes here.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently released its patient survey where hospital patients rate their experiences and patient care in a format much like a restaurant guide.

The survey showed some troubling results for Chicago area hospitals including some reports of patient dissatisfaction and hospital care statistics that need serious attention. For instance, four out of ten Illinois hospital patients responding to the survey indicated that they had to wait longer than expected when they needed help or called for assistance. Nearly one third of Illinois hospital patients felt that the hospital did not manage their pain properly. Additionally, only 57% of hospital patients thought that the hospital’s staff properly explained the benefits and risks of medication before administering it.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to make this survey mandatory for every US hospital; though the survey was voluntary in 2007, the Department will reduce Medicare funding for hospitals that do not participate in the survey.

Read the full news story here, and access the survey here.

According to a recent HealthGrades study of patient care in hospitals, the past three years of medical errors have cost the Medicare system more than $8.8 billion dollars. Additionally, the study found that hospital safety problems caused 238,337 preventable deaths to patients. Bed sores, failure to rescue, and respiratory failure were the most common cause of preventable death, affecting nearly 2 out of 3 patients. Other preventable malpractice errors included foreign bodies left in the patient during a procedure, anesthesia errors, hospital infections, and accidental lacerations.

For the full story, click here.

There are many factors that contribute to why Medicare & Medicaid fraud is becoming out of control in America. Two serious contributors are overpriced prescriptions for medications, devices and treatments in addition to overspending by largely unregulated hospitals. Billions of Americans' tax dollars are not going to where they are intended.

Doctors have many incentives for prescribing the most expensive drugs and medical devices mainly including rewards from drug companies. This type of fraud is estimated to account for about 15% of Medicare & Medicaid over-billings. It is difficult to restrict the ability of the drug companies to manipulate doctors because according to the study, the corporations have too much influence in the US Government.

Additionally, "boutique hospitals," those owned by investor groups and not-for-profit hospitals are also cited as a large source of Medicare & Medicaid fraud. According to the study, these hospitals are less regulated by the government and can, as a result, over-bill the federal government.

Medicare & Medicaid fraud was also shown to be extensive in nursing homes, rehab centers, and long term care facilities. Click here to learn more.

Click here for the full article

Another case of illegal kickbacks where doctors receive illegal payments for steering their patients in a certain direction has struck close to home. Illinois Attorney General recently intervened in a lawsuit against multiple Chicago radiology centers alleging illegal kickbacks to referring doctors. The complaint states that the radiology centers entered into sham agreements with Chicago doctors where the doctors would pay less for radiological services but charge the patient’s insurance a higher rate. The Chicago doctors would then keep the difference. The lawsuit asks the court to order the defendants to stop paying the illegal kickbacks and seeks monetary damages, restitution, and penalties.

For the full article.

A company that manages government health plans for the poor must pay at least $144 million in damages for wrongfully denying coverage to pregnant women eligible for Medicaid. The plaintiffs, which included the federal and Illinois governments, were awarded a total of $48 million by the jury. The company may also be liable for a total of as much as $199 million in penalties for more than 18,000 instances of fraud found by the Chicago jury.

For the full article.

$15.4 million was recently paid by a city hospital to resolve both state and federal claims against it. The lawsuit, brought by the government, alleged violations of the False Claims Act, stating that the hospital conspired to increase Medicare bills by paying physicians kickbacks to steer patients to the facility, where they frequency received unnecessary treatment. One of the defendants was a party to a $14 million settlement for a similar scheme he ran at a Chicago facility involving Chicago medical malpractice and Medicare fraud.

To read the full article.

A company called Neurometrix recently introduced a system that checks patients for nerve disease and has targeted the system for use by general practitioners. Its introduction to the market has not been painless.

Continue reading "Expensive new nerve test stirs controversy " »

An article reported that Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center had allowed one of its doctors to perform unnecessary heart procedures, such as angiograms, angioplasty, and stent replacements on their patients. The lawsuit against the Medical Center for defrauding public health care providers was filed by a whistleblower who had formerly worked with the doctor. The Federal Government has settled the lawsuit for $3.8 million and the whistleblower will receive $760,000 of the award. The doctor is also individually facing several criminal charges and hundreds of medical malpractice lawsuits for the unnecessary heart procedures.

For the full article.