Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Doctors Sued For Permitting Troubled Spine Surgeon To Operate
More than a dozen physicians representing two hospitals have been named as defendants in federal lawsuits that allege they acted in bad faith by allowing a spine surgeon to perform surgery at the hospitals. The doctors in question served on the committees that approved surgical privileges at Avera Sacred Heart and Lewis & Clark Specialty Hospital, both in Yankton, according to the lawsuits. The doctors are accused of extending Dr. Allen Sossan privileges to perform complex spine surgeries, despite knowing that Sossan had a history of performing unnecessary surgeries and unprofessional conduct. Both Avera Sacred Heart and Lewis & Clark also are defendants. (Ellis, 1/11)
A cardiac-biomarker laboratory under federal investigation cut ties with its sales-and-marketing contractor, ending a joint enterprise that has collected hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare. The lab, Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc., and the sales contractor, BlueWave Healthcare Consultants Inc., are the focus of a Justice Department civil probe into whether they paid kickbacks to doctors to induce them to prescribe HDL’s advanced blood tests. (Carreyrou, 1/11)
