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Wrong-Site Knee Surgery Suit; Wrongful Death Suit Dismissed; Doc Gets 10 Years

— A weekly roundup of healthcare's encounters with the courts

MedpageToday
Legal Break over a blindfolded Lady Justice statue holding scales.

A Connecticut couple is suing a hospital, a doctor, and two medical groups for allegedly a right knee implant in the husband's left knee. (CT Post)

Brittany Watts, the Ohio woman who was criminally charged after having a miscarriage in her home, , along with police officers and a local hospital and its owners. Watts claimed violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. She also accused law enforcement of malicious prosecution and false arrest, and healthcare professionals of medical negligence and unauthorized disclosure of confidential medical information. (Ohio Capital Journal)

A judge has a wrongful death lawsuit against El Paso Children's Hospital in Texas that was filed by the parents of 3-year-old Ivanna Maria Saucedo, who died at the hospital in 2019 after alleged care delays. (KFOX14)

Erin Strotman, the Virginia nurse accused of abusing infants in a neonatal intensive care unit, as the court awaits the findings of a mental health evaluation. Text messages shared in court recently showed evidence of her alleged mental health and substance abuse issues. (WTVR)

An Indian police volunteer was in the rape and murder of a junior doctor whose gruesome story made headlines around the world last year. (CNN)

Texas physician David Young, MD, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and will have to pay more than $26 million in restitution for his role in a durable medical equipment and cancer genetic testing scheme, . Young prescribed braces and genetic tests for over 13,000 Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom he didn't even see or treat, the DOJ said.

A woman was arrested for allegedly performing , including lipolysis, at her home in Connecticut. (NBC Connecticut)

An orthopedic clinic has in Los Angeles for $150 million, alleging it "orchestrated an underhanded scheme to crush [the clinic], steal its assets, and prioritize profits over patient care." (Becker's Hospital Review)

Virginia nursing home physician Gohar Abbasi, MD, has been in a case involving a man wandering city streets and dumping waste out of a colostomy bag. Abbasi reportedly told a detective that the man "was of sound mind and signed himself out of the facility [against medical advice]." (WTVR)

An Iowa physician and nurse practitioner have settled allegations that they participated in a telemedicine scheme in which they billed for office visits they didn't provide and wrote orders for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment such as orthotic braces, .

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    Kristina Fiore leads MedPage’s enterprise & investigative reporting team. She’s been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com.