Pacific Radiation Oncology LLC v. Queen’s Medical Center is a “retro” case in which the plaintiff physicians have obtained a temporary restraining order barring Queen’s Medical Center from adopting a closed department policy for its radiology oncology department.
Although this case is just in its early stages, it is interesting to note that federal court…
A Federal Court denied prevailing party attorneys’ fees to a hospital in a Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) proceeding and allowed the hospital to design its own due process in Fox v. Good Samaritan Hospital.
The denial of the attorneys’ fees is basically based upon laches and estoppel theory, because the hospital waited…
The cases where hospitals are denied HCQIA immunity are few and far between, especially when that denial is predicated upon the due process requirement of HCQIA, because of the due process exception condoning procedures that are fair under the circumstances.
In Smigaj v. Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital Association, the Washington Court of Appeals reversed…
In what is becoming well settled law, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that a medical resident is entitled to seek production of the evaluations and records of other residents as part of a federal discrimination claim, regardless of the confidentiality rules of state peer review statutes.
In Gargiulo v. Baystate …
The presumption of immunity granted by the Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) in peer review disputes is always a significant hurdle for physicians. In Zawislak v. Memorial Hermann Hospital System (which some readers may recognize from the excess benefit and physician recruitment IRS issues involving the hospital in the late 1990s), the hospital suspended Dr.
In Crow v. Penrose-St. Francis Healthcare System, a Colorado Appeals Court awarded attorneys’ fees to a hospital that successfully defended the claim by a physician seeking damages for breach of contract and torte claims.
The Colorado Rules of Civil Procedures authorized an award of attorneys’ fees when a trial court dismissed an action under…
In Gargiulo v. Baystate Health, Inc., Dr. Debra Gargiulo alleged that she was discriminated against on the basis of her age and disability by Baystate Health in violation of both federal and state law. As part of her claim, the plaintiff sought production of numerous documents relating to her records, evaluations and reports, as well…
In Georgopoulos v. Humility of Mary Health Partners Inc., Dr. Georgopoulos was placed upon a six month surgical proctoring requirement because of extended operating times and excessive use of blood products. In addition to many procedural defenses, Dr. Georgopoulos’s primary substantive defense is that his patient survival and freedom from major cardiac events…
Bissada v. Arkansas Children’s Hospital (the “Hospital”) presents an atypical peer review case. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment entered on behalf of the Hospital by the District Court on the basis of the existence of a Settlement Agreement, instead of relying upon the usual HCQIA peer review immunity protections.
Dr. Bissada practiced…
On January 21, 2009 I posted an article describing the preliminary injunction obtained by Jesse Cole, M.D. against St. James Healthcare in Montana, pursuant to which Dr. Cole’s clinical privileges were reinstated. For more information, see the website describing the final settlement in that case in which St. James Healthcare paid $4,000,000 to settle the
