A former doctor convicted of second-degree murder for infecting at least nine patients with hepatitis C was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for his role in one of the largest U.S. outbreaks of the disease tied to a physician. Dipak Desai, 63, who infected patients by re-using syringes at his Las Vegas endoscopy clinic, will be eligible for parole after 18 years under the sentence imposed by Clark County District Judge Valerie Adair. "When a trust that a patient places in his or her physician is betrayed, I don't think there is a greater betrayal in our society," Adair said in sentencing Desai.
When people are sick – really sick – they want to get better. And their doctors certainly want them to get better. Some doctors combine providing clinical care with a passion to do research in order to discover new ways to treat sick people. However, these clinical researchers often are required to do research to support their salary and get promoted. As such, researchers could find themselves with a conflict of interest with regard to any given patient. They desperately need patients to participate in their research studies, but a study may not be the best choice for any given person.
The White House hosted a group of health insurance executives this afternoon to discuss - you guessed it! - HealthCare.Gov. I'm still reaching out to a few of the attendees to get their take but, in the meantime, here's a readout of the meeting just sent to the White House's press list: Today, Secretary Sebelius, CMS Director Marilyn Tavenner, Valerie Jarrett, Chris Jennings and Denis McDonough met with health insurance executives to discuss open enrollment and ongoing implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The White House reaffirmed a key deadline in the health reform law Wednesday, saying people have until March 31 to sign up for health insurance even if the coverage doesn't kick in till later. The Obama administration is being pushed to soften some of the law's requirements, including the so-called individual mandate – the requirement that just about everyone have some sort of health insurance starting next year. Separately, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was already drafting a bill earlier Wednesday to delay the mandate for a year, his spokesman said.
The longtime owner and three other former executives of the now-closed Sacred Heart Hospital as well as four physicians have been indicted on federal charges alleging a decadelong fraud scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to doctors for referring patients to the hospital. The indictment comes six months after federal authorities raided the 119-bed facility on Chicago's West Side and arrested the hospital's former chief executive, Edward Novak, and several associates. A criminal complaint filed at that time portrayed the hospital as regularly shuttling nursing homes residents to the hospital and performing medically unnecessary and sometimes risky procedures, including tracheotomies, on patients.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived a lawsuit challenging a Virginia law that requires state approval for new or expanded medical facilities. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that a judge who dismissed the lawsuit must consider whether Virginia's "certificate of need" program violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by putting out-of-state health care providers at a competitive disadvantage. The lawsuit was filed by Colon Health Centers of America and Progressive Radiology, two out-of-state companies that want to open clinics in Virginia. Under state law, applicants for new medical facilities must demonstrate a public need for the services.