Stories about physicians and other healthcare professionals involved in lawsuits—as either a plaintiff or a defendant—or accused of breaking the law. Various legal updates or unusual stories in the news may land here.
Ritesh Kalra, MD, allegedly wrote 31,000 opioid prescriptions between 2019 and 2025, many of which were illegitimate. He is accused of inappropriately touching patients in exchange for oxycodone scripts as part of a five-count criminal indictment.
Former Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD, and other executives are accused in a $1.4 billion legal filing of paying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, despite the health system being insolvent.
AdventHealth Shawnee Mission is suing Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City over its AI claims audits, which have rejected some 350 incidents of patient care. The hospital claims the insurer is violating state and federal laws.
After the Supreme Court lifted a lower court injunction, approximately 10,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were officially terminated.
In a new report, the New York Times details multiple incidents of the insurance giant using legal threats to silence social media users and news outlets, citing the murder of Brian Thompson and the threat of rising violence as the basis for its claims.
The newly signed law, known as Act 264, bans pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies in the state. It's scheduled to go into effect beginning in 2026.
This is the second time Mark Linskey, MD, has been awarded a judgement. He claims UC Irvine kicked him out of a residency program when he reported patient safety concerns and multiple incidents of waste at the academic health system.
The lawsuits, filed in multiple states, contend there's a causal link between semaglutide and a rare condition called NAION that leads to diminished eyesight. Plaintiffs want the popular weight-loss drugs to add a warning label.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the judgment, which was issued against two facilities in Pennsylvania. The nursing homes fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for working hours despite staff not being on the floor.
In court documents, an unnamed Minnesota woman said that in 2022, she was admitted to an Allina Health hospital and scheduled for the removal of her infected spleen, only for an error to result in her left kidney being removed instead.
Community Health System and Physician Network Advantage, an affiliated technology consultancy firm, were accused of bribing physicians for patient referrals in the form of paid vacations, expensive gifts and business meetings held at strip clubs.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports that UnitedHealth Group is being investigated for criminal fraud, likely stemming from its Medicare Advantage billing practices.
Heartflow, known for its AI-based CCTA evaluations, appears to be going public. The news follows years of momentum for the California-based company, including improved Medicare reimbursements for cardiac CT and a new Category I CPT code for its Plaque Analysis software.
Suman Tandon, MD, an American Society of Nuclear Cardiology board member, explains the group's call on Congress to update a number of healthcare policies.
The 2026 MPFS proposed rule includes higher conversion factors across the board. However, some cardiology groups remain concerned about a series of reimbursement reductions for high-value cardiology services.
