ATLANTA, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ — Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta, Inc. engaged in a systematic scheme to inappropriately admit and overcharge thousands of patients, according to Page Perry, LLC, which has filed a second class action lawsuit against the hospital.
Dorothy J. Rivard, a former nursing and pharmacy assistant who was hospitalized at Saint Joseph’s in October 2007, alleges in the new lawsuit that she was wrongly diagnosed as a stroke victim, injected over her objections with inappropriate medication, and then subjected to two days of unnecessary and expensive medical testing.
The lawsuit alleges that Ms. Rivard later learned that her medical records contained “a variety of serious mischaracterizations” that apparently were “used to justify the belated length of stay and the battery of medical testing.”
According to the Complaint, “In order to increase revenues, and thus profitability, [Saint Joseph’s] engaged in a widespread and systematic scheme to admit to inpatient status patients who did not otherwise meet inpatient admission criteria and then issue charges and bills for such inpatient services accordingly.” The scheme was “well known to [Saint Joseph’s] management, administration, staff and contractors, if not also its board of directors. Moreover, [Saint Joseph’s] management and administration actively concealed such practices,” the lawsuit claims.
In May, former Saint Joseph’s patient Steven M. Lamb, of Snellville, Georgia, alleged another class action lawsuit that a carotid artery stent procedure he underwent in 2005 kept him admitted on an “inpatient” basis for two days — about twice as long as was medically necessary and at a more costly rate than an “outpatient visit” which typically is accomplished in hours, not days.
Ms. Rivard and Mr. Lamb are represented by attorneys James M. Evangelista and David J. Worley, of Page Perry, LLC, of Atlanta, and James A. Dunlap Jr., of Atlanta. Counsel will seek to have Ms. Rivard’s lawsuit certified as class actions that includes all patients of the hospital system between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 21, 2007 who were improperly admitted to Saint Joseph’s under inpatient status.
In December 2007, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia announced a “whistleblower” (qui tam) settlement in which Saint Joseph’s paid $26 million to settle federal false claims allegations related to thousands of patient stays between 2000 and 2005 that were billed to the federal Medicare program. The lawsuits filed on behalf of Ms. Rivard and Mr. Lamb seek to recover costs billed to individual patients, among other damages.
Attorney James M. Evangelista stated, “Patients came to Saint Joseph’s trusting that they would receive appropriate care, not expecting to be deliberately overbilled by Saint Joseph’s extending their hospital stay in a pretense of needed care. Ms. Rivard and Mr. Lamb and many people like him from throughout Georgia and elsewhere were inappropriately admitted and improperly billed.”
Both lawsuits — which allege breach of contract, breach of implied contractual duties of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, and breach of fiduciary duty — seek actual, exemplary, and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees.
The new case is “Dorothy J. Rivard, et al., v. Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta, Inc., and Saint Joseph’s Health System, Inc.,” (Case No. 2008CV155034, in the Superior Court of Fulton County).
The previously filed case is “Steven M. Lamb, et al., v. Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta, Inc., and Saint Joseph’s Health System, Inc.,” (Case No. 08-CV-151075, in the Superior Court of Fulton County).
For more information, please contact Page Perry, LLC, (770) 673-0047, http://www.pageperry.com/.
Media Contact: Erin Powers, Powers MediaWorks LLC, for Page Perry, LLC, (281) 362-1411 or (281) 703-6000.
Page Perry, LLC
CONTACT: Erin Powers of Powers MediaWorks LLC, +1-281-362-1411 or \+1-281-703-6000, for Page Perry, LLC
Web site: http://www.pageperry.com/
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