We have blogged about changed medical records in the past:
A Pennsylvania medical malpractice wrongful death lawsuit filed by the widow of a man who died as a result of alleged medical negligence that occurred in a Pennsylvania hospital alleged that the defendant hospital and its staff altered her husband’s medical records, citing the six sets of medical records she was provided by the hospital, all of which were inconsistent and contained contradictions.
It was when the wife sought a copy of her husband’s medical records to discover the cause of his death that she and her attorney were provided with what they were told were accurate and complete copies of her husband’s medical records, on at least six occasions. A digital forensic examiner hired by the wife’s attorney examined the medical records that were provided and reportedly noted many inconsistencies and contradictions within the medical records that made it impossible to determine exactly the course of treatment that the defendant hospital had provided to her husband.
A Florida medical malpractice case was settled after the parties’ closing arguments to the jury that alleged that critical medical records had been altered after surgery in an effort to bolster the defense.
A woman undergoing a hysterectomy in 2011 suffered a stroke as a result of an air embolism that developed during the procedure that traveled to her brain, according to the plaintiff’s Florida medical malpractice lawsuit. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants anesthesiologist and nurse-anesthesiologist negligently failed to recognize the signs of air entering the plaintiff’s veins during the surgery, which led to the stroke that resulted in her partial blindness and the inability of her brain to interpret what she is seeing.
The plaintiff’s Florida medical malpractice lawsuit alleged that her ETCO2 had fallen to the critically low value of 22 as a result of the embolism traveling to her brain but that the defendants failed to timely and appropriately respond to the urgent situation.
The plaintiff alleged that the defendants altered her medical records after the surgery to change the “22” ETCO2 reading written during the procedure to “32,” and that one of the defendants may have changed the 22 to 32 after the surgery in her mistaken belief that the ETCO2 reading was wrong because the plaintiff did not have other symptoms indicating that she had an air embolism.
The Superior Court of Delaware issued a decision on February 17, 2014 in a Delaware case where it had been previously determined that the Delaware medical malpractice defendant physician and her physician’s assistant had altered their medical records for a four-day-old patient to make them more favorable to them, once the defendant physician became aware of the medical malpractice claim against her and her physician’s assistant (“PA”) that alleged that the PA negligently failed to treat and diagnose the baby for jaundice, which resulted in the baby developing Kernicterus that led to permanent brain damage.
Two former employees of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center alleged that they were pressured by supervisors to falsify medical records and appointment dates to hide evidence of delays in medical treatment that may have harmed VA patients. The former employees allege that were instructed to document in patient medical records that the patients had declined follow-up appointments when the patients had never been contacted to schedule the follow-up appointments.
In a medical malpractice lawsuit that was tried before a Baltimore City medical malpractice jury, it was shown at trial that the defendant surgeon had changed the patient’s medical records to state that the plaintiff had complained of right-sided pelvic pain after the patient had filed her Baltimore medical malpractice lawsuit that alleged that the surgeon had incorrectly removed her right ovary instead of her left ovary that had a mass on it. The surgeon never advised the woman that the right ovary had been removed and the left ovary remained in place even during the woman’s one-month follow-up appointment with the surgeon. She only learned of her situation when she went to a hospital emergency room where she was advised of the discrepancy.
The plaintiff’s medical malpractice attorney repeatedly requested the plaintiff’s medical records from the defendant surgeon without success. The plaintiff’s attorney had also subpoenaed the medical records from another of the plaintiff’s medical providers that contained copies of records from the defendant surgeon. When the defendant surgeon finally provided a copy of the plaintiff’s medical records to the plaintiff’s attorney, it was obvious that the defendant surgeon had added a notation to the records after the surgery that the plaintiff had complained of pain on her right side before the surgery (in an apparent effort to justify the surgery on the plaintiff’s right side).
On January 14, 2013, after a four-day trial and only one hour of deliberation, the Baltimore medical malpractice jury awarded $1.42 million, all in noneconomic damages, which will be reduced to $680,000 under Maryland’s cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.
Source Neim, et al. v. Muoneke, M.D., Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Case No. 24C11006058.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office announced on January 25, 2023 that a licensed practical nurse working at Medilodge of Gaylord has been charged with five counts of Intentionally Placing False Information in a Medical Record, a five-year felony. Jennifer Porter, 49, of Vanderbilt, Michigan was arraigned in 87A District Court in Otsego County after an investigation by the Health Care Fraud Division (HCFD) of the Department of Attorney General.
The Michigan Attorney General alleged that during Porter’s employment as a Licensed Practical Nurse at Medilodge of Gaylord, a skilled nursing facility, she intentionally altered medication administration records to hide the fact that certain doses of medication were not accounted for. The Michigan Attorney General stated in announcing the charges, “The overwhelming majority of those who provide long-term care in Michigan do so with integrity and respect for their important role. But when there is a serious breach in the responsibility entrusted to them, there are consequences.”
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on September 15, 2021 that Dr. Ashish Pal, a cardiologist based in Orlando, Florida, paid $6.75 million to resolve allegations that he violated the False Claims Act by performing medically unnecessary ablations and vein stent procedures. The payment resolves allegations that he knowingly submitted false claims to federal health care programs for medically unnecessary ablations and vein stent procedures from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2019. The government alleged that Dr. Pal performed the ablations and stent procedures on veins that did not qualify for treatment under accepted standards of medical practice. Additionally, the government alleged that Dr. Pal made misrepresentations in patient medical records to justify the procedures, including overstating the degree of reflux and diameter of veins, and falsely documenting patient symptoms. The government also alleged that, in many instances, the ablations were performed either exclusively or primarily by one or more ultrasound technicians outside their scope of practice.
The Investigative Committee (IC) of the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners (Board) has summarily suspended the licenses to practice medicine of Maryanne DeForest Phillips, M.D. and Tammy Lynn Hankins, PA-C, related to numerous alleged violations of Nevada’s Medical Practice Act that had taken place at “Vida Spa,” a so-called “medical spa” located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On June 28, 2021, the IC issued its Order of Summary Suspension against Maryanne DeForest Phillips, M.D., alleging that Dr. Phillips administered Propofol for the purposes of anesthesia or sedation to at least seventy-two (72) individual patients, for invasive surgical procedures she performed on them at Vida Spa. In addition, it is alleged that Dr. Phillips, in concert with Vida Spa’s staff, falsified patient medical records in order to conceal her unlawful conduct. NRS 630.373 expressly prohibits a physician or physician assistant to administer or supervise directly the administration of general anesthesia, conscious sedation or deep sedation to patients at a facility that does not maintain a proper permit from the Nevada Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance as required by NRS Chapter 449.
In 2010 and 2011, the plaintiffs filed five separate, but similar, wrongful death lawsuits against the defendants alleging the defendants were directly and vicariously liable for the deaths of each of their family members at Hedrick Medical Center between February 2002 and April 2002 when a former respiratory therapist employed by the defendants intentionally administered lethal doses of succinylcholine and insulin to their family members. The plaintiffs claimed the therapist’s misconduct caused at least nine suspicious deaths and at least 18 other medical emergencies at Hendrick Medical Center.
The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants failed to inform the necessary persons and medical committees when the therapist’s misconduct was discovered and threatened or coerced hospital employees to conceal information regarding the therapist’s misconduct; that in order to prevent autopsies that would have revealed the decedents’ true causes of death, the defendants instructed hospital employees to notify the families that the decedents had died of natural causes; and, that the defendants removed or altered the decedents’ medical records to prevent the patients’ physicians from accessing them, and the defendants impeded law enforcement’s investigation of the therapist by failing to investigate or monitor her activities when asked to do so and by failing to preserve evidence relating to her misconduct.
The plaintiff’s Virginia medical malpractice lawyer reported that the defendant anesthesiologist testified during her deposition that she had thoroughly reviewed the patient’s hospital chart before the second surgery. The plaintiff’s lawyer investigated the audit trail of the electronic health record that reportedly revealed that the defendant anesthesiologist spent only one minute on the date of the second surgery reviewing the plaintiff’s hospital chart. The audit trail reportedly also indicated that the defendant anesthesiologist had entered the electronic medical record and edited her pre-anesthesia note three times on the date of the second surgery, and that all three versions provided to the plaintiff’s lawyer and to the defendant’s lawyer about six weeks before the scheduled trial reportedly showed that the defendant added an explanation why a drain tube was not placed, and added and then deleted an entry into the record that she palpated the plaintiff’s abdomen and found it to be distended, in an apparent attempt to deflect blame away from her.
It was after the disclosure of the edited medical record that the first offer of settlement was made. The Virginia medical malpractice case was settled shortly before trial.
The alleged medical negligence was the defendant gynecologist’s failure to recognize the perforations during the diagnostic hysteroscopy, and the failure of the defendant gynecologist to instruct the patient to immediately go to the hospital following the gynecologist’s discussion with the pathologist.
The defendant gynecologist reportedly testified during her deposition that she did not alter the patient’s medical records, including phone records, after she learned that the patient had died. The plaintiff’s South Carolina medical malpractice lawyer reportedly determined from an audit trail of the medical records that the defendant gynecologist altered the phone records after learning about the patient’s death.
Physician Found Guilty Of Re-Using Single-Use Medical Device 1400 times: After a three-week federal jury trial, and 5 hours of jury deliberation, Anita Louise Jackson, 59, was found guilty on charges of adulterating medical devices for use on patients with intent to defraud and mislead, fabricating medical and healthcare records, paying illegal renumerations, mail fraud, and conspiracy. Jackson was convicted of using re-used devices to perform more than 1,400 surgeries for Medicare patients between 2011 and the end of 2017. After the verdict, Jackson was taken into custody pending sentencing.
On August 1, 2017, a woman who was misdiagnosed with pancreatic cancer by a hospital pathologist and underwent unnecessary surgery to remove multiple organs due to the misdiagnosis that was concealed from her filed a Kansas medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital, the former chair of the hospital’s pathology department, and a surgeon involved in her “cancer treatment.” The woman’s cancer misdiagnosis and the alleged concealment of her cancer misdiagnosis had been the subject of a whistleblower lawsuit previously filed against the hospital.
The whistleblower lawsuit alleged: “In early 2016 the Chair of the Pathology Department instructed others to alter medical records regarding the Chair’s misdiagnosis, and to remove from the records any reference that a Root Cause Analysis was necessary. The patient was not informed of the misdiagnosis as of February 2016, and to the best of Tilzer’s knowledge the patient still has not been informed that the patient did not have cancer, and that it was unnecessary to remove the patient’s essential body organ … The form of cancer that was erroneously diagnosed within the patient is commonly known to be potentially lethal; and the patient who was misdiagnosed has lived with this unwarranted fear for as long as KUMC/KU Hospital have concealed the misdiagnosis.”
On November 17, 2015, the Arkansas State Claims Commission, which is a quasi-judicial Commission created by the Arkansas General Assembly designed to afford relief to those who have in some way been injured or damaged by the State of Arkansas (the Commission is described as “the conscience of the State of Arkansas”), awarded a man $2 million for surgery performed on the wrong side of his brain in 2004. The award must be approved by state legislators before the payment can be made.
The Commission determined that the surgeons and administrators at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences were negligent in performing surgery on the then 15-year-old’s brain at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital that was intended to reduce the number of seizures that he was experiencing.
According to the Commission’s findings, the surgeon who was performing the brain surgery cut into and removed a part of the wrong side of the patient’s brain, which he did not realize until several hours into the surgery. Once the surgeon realized his error, he then operated on the other side of the patient’s brain but never told the patient or his family about the surgical error. It was not until 18 months later that the family discovered the surgeon’s mistake when a MRI showed that surgery was performed on both sides of the patient’s brain.
A 42-year-old neurosurgeon in Oregon who faced more than 30 medical malpractice lawsuits against him agreed to surrender his Oregon medical license, which the Oregon Medical Board (“Board”) approved during its meeting on October 9, 2012. The Board had issued a Complaint and Notice of Proposed Disciplinary Action against the neurosurgeon on June 22, 2102, alleging violations of the Oregon Medical Practice Act regarding unprofessional or dishonorable conduct; obtaining any fee by fraud or misrepresentation; and gross or repeated negligence in the practice of medicine. The Board’s Stipulated Order was effective as of October 11, 2012. The agreement effectively ends a disciplinary proceeding against the neurosurgeon in Oregon and precludes him from practicing medicine anywhere in the United States.
In January, 2011, the neurosurgeon was the subject of another investigation by the Board involving allegations that he billed for surgeries that he did not perform and that he falsified surgical records in support of his efforts. Two months later, the neurosurgeon was reported as being the subject of an investigation into Medicare billing that alleged that he was performing multiple spinal-fusion surgeries at a rate almost 10 times higher than the national average (he was reported as having the highest rate of multiple spinal-fusion surgeries of the 3,407 surgeons who had performed such surgeries on 20 or more Medicare patients during 2008 and 2009). He was also reportedly the subject of an FBI investigation that questioned his patients. Feeling the pressure from the Board’s investigation, the neurosurgeon voluntarily agreed in April, 2011 to stop performing surgical procedures unless he first obtained prior approval from a neurosurgical mentor appointed by the Board.
If your medical records were altered/changed and you may be the victim of medical malpractice, you should promptly find a medical malpractice lawyer in your state who may investigate your medical malpractice claim for you and represent you in a medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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