NM medical boards in need of higher standards
Two unusual types of medical malpractice cases in southern New Mexico show how rogue doctors can run up exorbitant medical bills, put patients through painful, and sometimes life-threatening, procedures that aren’t necessary and call into question the role of device manufacturers who may try to unduly influence doctors to use their products and perform unnecessary procedures.
They also call into question the oversight of conflicted hospital administrators who let profits overwhelm patient well being.
And, finally, are the regulatory agencies, such as the New Mexico Medical Board, effective mechanisms for protecting patients — or do they tilt toward watching the backs of fellow physicians?
The two egregious sets of cases generated millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements. And the unethical practices revealed in both cases are among problems that contribute to the runaway costs of U.S. health care.
One case involves lawsuits filed against the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo; Dr. Frank Bryant, its chief of staff; and Dr. Christian Schlicht, an osteopath who injected unauthorized hot bone cement, basically a form of Plexiglas, into patients’ spines to alleviate pain. Those cases, which also named national hospital management firm Quorum Health Resources as a defendant, are unresolved after the hospital declared bankruptcy in 2011 as a result of lawsuits filed by more than 100 plaintiffs.
In the other cases, two dozen former patients sued two Las Cruces hospitals going back to 2010, osteopathic cardiologist Demosthenis Klonis and the American subsidiary of the German medical device manufacturing company Biotronik Inc.
Klonis was accused of persuading patients to have Biotronik devices implanted, including heart pacemakers. Patients were told they would die if they didn’t have an immediate surgical implantation of a pacemaker or defibrillator and some patients were made to sign papers acknowledging they had been told their conditions were so serious they could even die on the way home.
Among allegations was that Biotronik pressured Klonis to use its pacemakers. In a separate 2014 action, Biotronik agreed to pay the United States $4.9 million to settle allegations the company paid kickbacks to physicians to use its devices.
The New Mexico pacemaker lawsuits settled in 2016 and, while the actual amounts are confidential, an Oct. 18 court filing suggests the plaintiffs’ attorneys received more than $10 million. In the only pacemaker case to go to trial, a state District Court jury awarded a $67 million verdict, but a trial judge reduced the award to $25 million. Defendants eventually settled.
As demonstrated by these cases, there appears to be fertile ground for pushy companies and unscrupulous doctors to run up bills at physical and economic detriments to patients.
Whatever fate awaits national health care policy in America under the new Congress, steps should be taken to require better oversight of operations of hospitals of all sizes to avoid such expensive outcomes.
Meanwhile, the New Mexico Medical Board, charged with oversight of doctors, operates quietly and under the radar. It had no jurisdiction over Schlicht or Klonis because they were osteopaths. The state board that regulates doctors of osteopathy took no effective action against Schlicht, who left New Mexico. In Klonis’ case, the New Mexico Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners settled a five-year-old disciplinary case against him in 2015. But, by that time, he had already stopped practicing and left the state.
The Medical Board, meanwhile, has allowed orthopedic surgeon Bryant to return to practice. Bryant says he feels terrible about what happened. That’s not much comfort — either to those patients or to the rest of us going forward.