Legal & Regulatory Issues

Centene and Humana each filed a lawsuit Sept. 22 alleging pharmaceutical company Merck stifled generic drug competition to inflate prices for Zetia and Vytorin, which treat high cholesterol. 

A judge on Sept. 23 dismissed a lawsuit brought by employees of Ochsner Lafayette (La.) General Medical Center seeking to halt the hospital's COVID-19 vaccination requirement, according to news station KTBS.

The owner of Loveland (Colo.) Medical Clinic was ordered to pay a fine for violating a cease-and-desist order that required him to stop marketing false COVID-19 cures.

A group including medical providers, individual patients and the Montana Medical Association is challenging a Montana state law that prohibits discrimination based on vaccination status, according to court documents and media reports.

From an antitrust settlement involving Pennsylvania hospitals receiving final approval to a Georgia health system facing a class-action lawsuit over a ransomware attack, here are the latest hospital lawsuits and settlements making headlines. 

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by three unvaccinated Winchester (Va.) Medical Center workers who sought to stay employed, according to The Northern Virginia Daily.

Humana is contesting allegations from former CMO Sandra Guerra, MD, who claims she was fired in 2020 over her race and gender. 

Hasan Gokal, MD, who was fired after administering expiring COVID-19 vaccine doses, is suing Harris County Public Health for $1 million for allegedly launching a misinformation campaign and discriminating against him based on his ethnicity, according to a Sept. 22…

Federal prosecutors are increasingly turning to the HIPAA subpoena to support investigations as the Justice Department continues to crack down on criminal healthcare cases, according to a Sept. 21 JD Supra report. 

A California woman was sentenced Sept. 21 to three years of probation for her role in a multimillion-dollar Medicare fraud scheme that exposed the private data of more than 500,000 patients, according to the Justice Department.