settle

Welcome to malpractice in the Internet era. In what may be a first, a Massachusetts physician has agreed to settle a case after admitting in court that he'd written a series of scathing blog entries about participants in his ongoing trial. Pediatrician Robert Lindeman was defending himself against a suit involving the death of 12-year-old Jaymes Binns, who passed away from complications of diabetes in 2002. Along the way, apparently, he was blogging about the case under the pseudonym …

In an effort to get out from under charges of patient dumping, another hospital has agreed to adopt a voluntary set of guidelines designed to prevent such episodes from happening again. This time the hospital is Los Angeles-based Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, which came under fire earlier this year when it discharged a homeless paraplegic who was later found crawling on a street in Skid Row. Despite the announcement, however, the city attorney continues to investigate the earlier …

UnitedHealthCare has settled a series of Nebraska charges by paying the largest fine ever imposed by the state's insurance regulators. UHC agreed to pay the Nebraska Department of Insurance $650,000 to settle a barrage of complaints, largely related to its claims handling process. This follows a previous settlement in 2005, in which United paid a total of $62,500 to settle another series of complaints. Regulators had said that UHC had violated 18 Nebraska laws more than 800 times between …

It's never good for business when you've angered 900,000 doctors. But with any luck, that chapter is over for 23 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, which were targeted by a class-action lawsuit alleging unfair payment practices. The suit, which was filed in 2003, asserted that 23 BCBS plans were habitually cheating doctors by deliberately paying for less-intensive services than they had in fact provided. The BCBS plans have agreed to pay $128 million to settle the suit, and pay as much as …

Over the past couple of years, executives at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have found a new way to deal with the threat of malpractice claims. The medical center has developed a formal mediation process which not only settles claims, but does so in creative ways. Of course, UPMC does offer cash to settle some claims, but it has also mounted plaques and named hospital rooms in an aggrieved patient's honor. It's also given patients a chance to discuss their negative …

Atlanta-area hospitals are struggling to keep up with a rapidly expanding population of children. The area has seen an influx of young people moving to the area; in addition, more Latino immigrants are choosing to settle in Atlanta. These factors have combined to produce record numbers of sick children and no place to treat them. The situation has led to a growing number of diversions, as hospitals send children to other facilities when their own hospital is too full.

Area …

In May of 2006, Tenet Healthcare agreed to a $21 million dollar agreement with federal officials to settle charges that it used kickback payments to doctors to encourage them to refer patients. As part of the agreement, Tenet unloaded the troubled hospital to two physicians, Drs. Pejman and Pedram Salimpour, who paid $36.5 million for the facility. Since the physicians have acquired Alvarado, the San Diego Tribune reports, the hospital workers' morale has lifted as they no longer …

Eli Lilly has agreed to pay as much as $500 million to settle 18,000 claims that people who took the drug developed diabetes. Previous data indicated that patients on Zyprexa were 3.5 times more likely to experience elevated blood sugar levels than volunteers taking a placebo, and the disease is heavily influenced by weight gain and blood sugar levels. Report

HMO operator Amerigroup has been fined $144 million by a federal jury, which concluded that the company deliberately avoided enrolling pregnant and high-risk patients in its Medicaid plan in an effort to pump up profits. The jury had originally fined the company $48 million, but the judgment was tripled under the federal False Claims Act. Next, the prosecutors plan to seek an additional $200 million in fines, in compensation for the 18,000 false claims Amerigroup filed in the …

HealthSouth's huge accounting scandal has finally come to a close, as the company has agreed to pay $445 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit. HealthSouth will be responsible for $215 million in cash, stocks and warrants and insurance companies will pay the remaining part of the settlement. The $2.7 billion scandal eventually led to the conviction of 15 HealthSouth executives. Though HealthSouth will pay the hefty settlement, the company has admitted no wrongdoing.

For details on the settlement:
- see this Modern Healthcare report