Termination of Employment Without Cause Upheld in Absence of Any Real Allegations/Evidence of Discrimination
A federal district court in Kansas granted summary judgment in favor of a hospital being sued for unlawful discrimination and retaliation by a physician whose employment had been terminated without cause. In reaching this determination, the court noted that concerns about the physician’s quality and behaviors had already been raised before he engaged in the alleged protected activities (asserting a sexual harassment claim against another practitioner). Further, the court rejected the physician’s argument that the employer’s investigation into the matter was unfair and, thus, the alleged reasons for termination were pretext. In doing so, the court noted that the hospital was not required to conduct an optimal investigation of the concerns about practitioner – only a fair investigation. Thus, regardless of the physician’s claim that the hospital should have interviewed other witnesses or should have formally interviewed the practitioner himself as part of its investigation, there was no inference of pretext because the hospital did telephone the plaintiff physician to ask for his side of the story and, in doing so, gave him a platform to plead his case, assert his innocence, provide information about his qualifications and performance, and so on. The court also rejected the physician’s ADA claim holding, amongst other things, that the mere fact that the MEC requested the physician to obtain a psychological evaluation is insufficient to show that the hospital/employer perceived the physician as having an impairment. Byrnes v. St. Catherine Hospital
Florida’s Amendment 7 Requires More Than Mere Allegations to Get Full Credentialing Files
The District Court of Appeal of Florida granted an ambulatory surgery center’s request to quash a lower court order requiring the surgery center to disclose a practitioner’s entire credentials file to a patient suing for malpractice and negligent credentialing. The lower court had ordered the documents to be turned over to the patient on the basis that they were related to an adverse medical incident (an amputation of the leg following surgery) experienced by the patient and, in turn, would be covered by Florida’s Amendment 7 (a state Constitutional amendment that allows patients in Florida to obtain documents related to an adverse medical incident). But, the appellate court disagreed, holding that merely asserting a negligent credentialing claim in a complaint does not render all documents in a credentialing file relevant to an adverse medical incident, nor does it render such documents discoverable. Rather, said the court, the plaintiff in a malpractice or negligent credentialing claim must first establish through trial or pretrial adjudication (such as summary judgment) the existence of an adverse medical incident and only after doing so can otherwise privileged documents be ordered produced. Regala v. McDonald
No Stark Exception When Mailing Drugs
A federal district court in Washington, DC dismissed a lawsuit brought by an oncology clinic that claimed HHS and CMS improperly extended the Stark law when they issued FAQs interpreting the In-Office Ancillary Exception to not be applicable when physicians mail cancer drugs to patients’ homes. The FAQs concluded that mailing drugs did not constitute dispensing drugs to patients in the office. The court concluded that the FAQs were consistent with the most logical reading of the HHS Stark regulations and, in turn, did not change any substantive legal standard (and thus, did not require formal rulemaking pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act in order to be enforced). Community Oncology Alliance v. Becerra