The U.K.’s exit from the European Union is throwing trade agreements up in the air. How the new situation will look in the end is still a mystery for major companies in the healthcare industry, which could get stung by dramatic changes. According to a recent Bloomberg interview with a regulatory affairs expert at Merck…
How A Drug Company Schemed To Sell A Potent Opioid To Fake Cancer Patients
A report released earlier this month has detailed the various ways a pharmaceutical company allegedly schemed to illegally sell a highly addictive fentanyl spray. According to the report, which was issued by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Insys Therapeutics repeatedly bribed doctors, falsified patient files, and misled insurers in order to boost prescriptions for its fentanyl…
Resident Who Claims She Was Called ‘Too Nice’ To Be A Surgeon Sues Her School
A surgical resident has filed a suit against St. Louis University, alleging that she’s being forced to redo her fourth year of residency due to discrimination. According to the suit, the resident, Mandy Rice, was repeatedly told during her residency that that her history as a nurse made her unfit to be a surgeon. Rice…
Hospital Cited After Death Of Boy Left Under Bair Hugger
A hospital in Pennsylvania has been cited following the death of a 6-year-old boy who was left under a Bair Hugger blanket for 10 hours. According to a state report, the patient was brought to Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center on the afternoon of Jan. 10 with a low body temperature and…
Lawsuit: Hospital Secretly Taped Patient Calls
A physician who formerly practiced at Houston Methodist Hospital has alleged that the facility recorded phone calls between medical staff and patients. The lawsuit was filed by Eric Haufrect, MD, who claims that a nurse told him about the recordings in October 2016. After emailing hospital administrators, Haufrect alleges that he was told that the…
Texas Hospital Group Hit With $2.5 Million HIPAA Fine
It seemed only natural that Memorial Hermann Health System would mention Blanca Borrego’s name in a news release. At the time, the hospital was mired in a public relations fiasco with the former patient and her name had been mentioned widely in the press. As it turns out, the decision was a $2.4 million mistake.…
The Impact Of Medicaid: By The Numbers
It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. When Medicaid was included as a small program in the larger Medicare scheme passed in 1965, it was aimed at helping only the nation’s poorest residents. Since then it has slowly swelled to encompass more and more Americans in need of healthcare assistance. While government-run healthcare has…
Trial Underway For Ex-Surgeon Who Wanted To Be A ‘Cold-Blooded Killer’
When the stories of the patients harmed by ex-neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch emerged, the details were shocking. One patient has accused Duntsch of cutting a major vein during an operation, and another says he operated on the wrong part of her spine, which damaged nerves and left her bound to a wheelchair. Duntsch is also accused…
A New Wave Of Lawsuits Against Silicone Breast Implants Could Be Coming
Johnson & Johnson’s Mentor Worldwide unit has found itself the subject of a lawsuit alleging that it sold breast implants that have caused a host of health problems for at least one patient. According to a report in Bloomberg, the lawsuit is the first related to these specific silicone-based implants. It stems from a string of…
Physician Convicted Of Healthcare Fraud Could Face 80 Years in Prison
It was a smoothly run scam for the eight doctors involved — that is, until they got caught. According to prosecutors in a case against Dr. Faiz Ahmed, a 64-year-old physician who specialized in neurology, for two days each week the doctor signed off on a slew of unnecessary tests for fake patients. The…
The Supposed Physician Shortage — By The Numbers
The U.S. could be heading toward a critical shortage in practicing physicians — at least, that’s one way to interpret data on the issue. But as a New York Times report points out, some experts say that numbers revealing a gap between the number of physicians and our aging population don’t account for other factors…
Ex-DEA Official Call Lawmakers’ Attempt To Fight Opioid Epidemic ‘A Farce’
Don’t be fooled by American lawmakers’ recent legislative efforts to curb the opioid epidemic. At least that’s the message from a former top Drug Enforcement Agency official recently interviewed by The Guardian, who called those measures “a farce,” and said that Congress is still too wedded to pharmaceutical companies to push for meaningful regulations. Joseph Rannazzisi…
Judge Slashes $500 Million Verdict Against J&J Over Metal Hip Implants
A U.S. judge delivered a mix of good and bad news this week to Johnson & Johnson and its DePuy unit regarding an earlier verdict over an allegedly defective metal-on-metal hip implant. On Tuesday, a U.S. District Judge in Texas decided to reduce the amount of damages that had been awarded to five plaintiffs and…
The Major New OSHA Rule Setting Off a Fierce Debate in Manufacturing
There’s a major change coming for an OSHA accident reporting rule, and not everyone is happy about it. The new regulation will apply to a long-standing injury and illness reporting requirement that mandates manufacturers and other business to log incidents and keep them on hand. In the past, companies held onto those records and only…
GM Is Starting to Win Some Ignition Switch Cases — But Plaintiffs Aren’t Letting Up
For two years, General Motors has been on the business end of a mighty onslaught of litigation related to the most abysmal safety failure in the company’s history. This year the automaker has begun winning some of its cases related to faulty ignition switches, but plaintiffs suing the company say they don’t intend to back…