Blom v. Wellstar Health Sys., Inc. (Summary)

SEX DISCRIMINATION

Blom v. Wellstar Health Sys., Inc., No. 13-11893 (11th Cir. Mar. 27, 2014)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a hospital, finding that a former medical director could not sufficiently allege her claims of gender discrimination and quid pro quo sexual harassment.

The hospital had concerns about three aspects of the medical director’s billing practices: (1) insufficient documentation of procedures; (2) coding above national benchmarks; and (3) billing through her own provider number when she was using another physician to cover her.  The hospital also received an anonymous complaint that she was not fulfilling her duties and was falsifying documentation.  The hospital investigated the complaint and found that the allegations were unfounded; however, the investigation revealed other concerns about the medical director’s performance.  Some of these concerns included that she generally did not go to work during daytime hours, that she documented examining patients that she did not perform exams on, that she was not often present during the discharge process (which is required by the discharge summary), that she often arrived late for team conferences, and that her staff seemed dejected and resigned.  The medical director’s employment was terminated after the hospital concluded that she was a compliance risk and that she failed to conduct herself in a manner consistent with the hospital’s expectations.

The court found that the hospital relied on three legitimate nondiscriminatory bases for the medical director’s termination: (1) concerns about her coding; (2) performance issues that arose after the investigation; and (3) concerns that she was a compliance risk and behaved inconsistently with the position of medical director, which the medical director failed to rebut.  The court further found that the medical director failed to present sufficient evidence that would allow a jury to find that she was the victim of gender discrimination, and failed to rebut and show pretext as to the hospital’s reasons for her termination.  Finally, the court concluded that the medical director failed to present sufficient evidence to establish a causal link between her termination and alleged sexual harassment, thereby failing to sufficiently allege her quid pro quo sexual harassment claim.