“This is one area where market forces don’t seem to be working, but a totally neutral second opinion might. HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States with 163 facilities is being accused of knowingly performing unecesarry and dangerous heart operation.
According to the New York Times, HCA “had uncovered evidence as far back as 2002 and as recently as late 2010 showing that some cardiologists at several of its hospitals in Florida were unable to justify many of the procedures they were performing. Those hospitals included the Cedars Medical Center in Miami, which the company no longer owns, and the Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point. In some cases, the doctors made misleading statements in medical records that made it appear the procedures were necessary, according to internal reports.”
And people who tried to stop the practice were punished.
A nurse, at one hospital complained about the unnecessary surgeries. His allegations proved to be correct and his contract was not renewed, which the hospital chain said was a coincidence.
Brad Barr for The New York Times
The Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Fla.
“In a follow-up interview, the nurse said a doctor at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center, in the small coastal city of Fort Pierce, had been performing heart procedures on patients who did not need them, putting their lives at risk,” the article said.
“The allegations related to unnecessary procedures being performed in the cath lab are substantiated,” according to a confidential memo written by a company ethics officer, Stephen Johnson, and reviewed by The New York Times.
Is the group Hartford Specialists part of this same chain? When my credit card payment goes through to them, it says HCA!?
Found this site: http://www.healthgrades.com/group-directory/connecticut-ct/farmington/hca-heartford-specalists-64764984
FINALLY!!!!! Finally they’ve been caught … not before preforming a non-consented procedure on my father and strokingg him out leaving him to have to live in a nursing home under 24 hour care …. let’s not forget they billed us for it and continue to harass his nursing home and family. May they get all they deserve.
hmmm… my husband had open heart surgery in October 2010 at St. Francis in Hartford, CT., when they opened him up and put him on by-pass they could not find the aortic tear that was seen on the CT scan… my huband is very bitter.
My Father underwent a quadruple bypass. When he died an autopsy was performed only to discover he had a triple bypass. The insurance company was billed for a quad.