Here are eight legal battles involving cardiologists and heart centers since the start of 2023:
1. A Fayetteville, N.C.-based cardiologist and his practice agreed to pay more than $5 million to resolve allegations of false Medicare and Medicaid claims linked to atherectomy procedures.
2. In June, a patient at Great Valley Cardiology in Scranton, Pa., filed a lawsuit against the system following a data breach that compromised the personal information of 181,764 patients. Now, two more lawsuits have been filed against the system and its affiliate, Commonwealth Health System.
3. An Indiana physician was found negligent and ordered to pay more than $2.6 million to a patient after a botched cardiac catheterization left the patient's right leg "disfigured and virtually unusable."
4. A Kentucky cardiologist filed a defamation lawsuit May 15 against Owensboro (Ky.) Health Regional Hospital and two of its physicians.
5. Northwell Health, based in New Hyde Park, N.Y., is being sued over racial and gender discrimination by a Black female cardiologist who had privileges in the system beginning in the late 1990s.
6. Ten Florida cardiologists agreed to pay $2 million to the state of Florida to resolve allegations that they submitted inflated claims to Medicare and Medicaid and billed while the physicians were outside the U.S.
7. Athens (Ga.) Heart Center and surgeon Subodh Agrawal, MD, have been ordered by a state court jury to pay $4.36 million in medical malpractice damages following the 2017 death of a patient.
8. The Iowa State Appeal Board settled a 2020 lawsuit with a cardiologist for releasing information related to an incident that occurred during a 2010 surgery. In a 2021 lawsuit between the hospital, Iowa State Appeal Board and the cardiologist, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that healthcare regulators cannot publicly disclose information about formal disciplinary charges filed against physicians in the state.