Texas Supreme Court Dismisses Whistleblower Suit Against UT Southwestern

The Texas Supreme Court has dismissed a physician's whistleblower suit against UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, reasoning that the plaintiff did not notify the proper authority about his suspicions of fraud, according to a Culture Map Dallas report.

The court decided that Larry Gentilello, MD, did not notify the right authority about his claims of fraud when he told his supervisor, Robert Rege, MD, chairman of the department of surgery, of allegedly improper billing practices in the hospital's emergency room. At the time, Dr. Gentilello was a tenured professor at UT Southwestern and chair of its division of burn, trauma and critical care.

Dr. Gentilello later sued UT's medical school for retaliation in 2007, claiming he was demoted and barred from the operating room after he notified Dr. Rege of the alleged fraud.

But under Texas' whistleblower act, employees are protected from retaliation only if they report a "violation of law" to "an appropriate law enforcement authority," according to the report. Thus, in order for Dr. Gentilello to seek claims for his demotion, he would have had to report the alleged fraud to CMS, the court decided.

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