Business Law Health Law Committee

After announcing in December that it would intervene in a qui tam action under the False Claims Act against Sutter Health and Palo Alto Medical Foundation, the US Department of Justice filed its complaint-in-intervention in the Northern District of California on March 4, 2019. Read more

The Medical Board of California received an anonymous complaint alleging that Dr. Kamyar Cohanshohet was prescribing excessive narcotics to his patients. After obtaining a report from the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) identifying the amount of controlled substances Dr. Cohanshohet prescribed, a Board investigator identified five patients who were possibly prescribed excess doses. The patients refused to release their medical records. Dr. Cohanshohet asserted his patients’ privacy rights and refused to comply with a subpoena to turn them over. The Board then filed a petition seeking an order compelling production of the records. Read more

Hospital liable for damages for inducing physician’s medical group not to schedule him for work without affording peer review rights. Read more

Plaintiffs seeking nominal statutory damages under the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act may demand a jury trial. Patient Robert Brown owed a debt to his dentist. The dentist referred the debt to a collection agency owned by Stewart Mortenson, which allegedly transmitted confidential medical information to several consumer credit reporting agencies. Brown sued Mortenson for violating the 2013 version of the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) (Civ. Code, §§ 56 et seq.). The trial court denied Brown’s request for a jury trial on his CMIA claims for nominal statutory damages and attorney fees. Read more