Despite a partnership that began back in 1997, Tufts Medical Center in Boston has sued the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) for $1.4 million. Tufts claims the Foundation hasn't reimbursed the hospital for research and assistance it provided in designing diagnosis and treatment guidelines for kidney disease, reports the Boston Globe.
In addition to the money owed for work already completed, the hospital also maintains the Foundation needs to pay up more than $912,000 for work that will be done by the end of June when the Tufts-NKF contract expires.
However, Tufts says it believes the Foundation "has no intention of paying," as the Foundation already has cancelled several meetings scheduled to resolve the issue, notes the Globe.
"The National Kidney Foundation and Tufts University Medical Center have had several confidential conversations surrounding NKF's practice guidelines," Foundation spokeswoman Ellie Schlam said in an email to the Globe. "We hope to continue to negotiate with Tufts in good faith and come to an amicable solution."
Tufts is no stranger to the legal system, as earlier this year it was sued for faxing patient medical records without consent, as well as settled a lawsuit with Lifespan Hospital Group, which paid Tufts $14.2 million for failing to disclose potential conflicts of interests.
Meanwhile, the National Kidney Foundation has garnered some support from new research in the September issue of Annals of Family Medicine for its recommendation that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) be avoided in patients with chronic kidney disease. The study found that many people with kidney disease regularly use the painkillers even though NSAIDs may worsen the condition, reports Reuters.
For more:
- read the Boston Globe article
- here's the Reuters article
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