VA hired workers with revoked medical licenses
Practice went on 15 years in violation of federal law
The Department of Veterans Affairs allowed its hospitals across the country to hire health care providers with revoked medical licenses for at least 15 years in violation of federal law, a USA TODAY investigation found.
The VA issued national guidelines in 2002 giving hospitals discretion to hire clinicians after “prior consideration of all relevant facts surrounding” any revocations and as long as they still had a license in one state.
A federal law passed in 1999 bars the VA from employing any health care worker whose license has been yanked by any state.
Hospital officials at the VA in Iowa City relied on the illegal guidance this year to hire neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider, who revealed in his application that he had numerous malpractice claims and settlements and Wyoming had revoked his license after a patient died. He still had a license in Montana.
The VA moved to fire Schneider Nov. 29 after inquiries about his case from USA TODAY. He resigned instead. The VA said at the time that Iowa City hospital officials received “incorrect guidance” green-lighting his hiring in April. The agency conceded this week that it was national policy.
VA Secretary David Shulkin said in
an interview that he ordered the rewriting of the guidelines and launched a nationwide review to identify and remove any other health care workers with revoked licenses. “It’s very clear to me that our job is to have the best quality doctors that we can provide to take care of veterans, and that’s going to be our policy,” he said.
Shulkin said health care providers with sanctions against their medical licenses short of revocation — suspensions or reprimands, for example — will be reviewed to ensure they provide quality care to veterans at the VA.
The USA TODAY investigation found that in addition to hiring Schneider, VA hospitals knowingly hired other health care providers with license penalties. In some cases, they went on to harm veterans.
A VA hospital in Oklahoma hired a psychiatrist sanctioned for sexual misconduct who slept with a VA patient. The VA in Tomah, Wis., hired a psychiatrist disciplined for medication violations who overprescribed narcotics to veterans. A Louisiana VA clinic hired a psychologist with felony convictions. The VA fired him after determining he was a “direct threat to others” and the VA’s mission.
USA TODAY reported that the malpractice claims against Schneider included cases alleging he made surgical mistakes that left patients maimed, paralyzed or dead and that his veteran patients in Iowa suffered complications. One of those patients, Richard Joseph Hopkins, 65, died from an infection in August after four brain surgeries by Schneider in a span of four weeks.
Schneider denied in an interview that he provided substandard care and blamed poor patient outcomes on other providers or unfortunate complications that can occur in neurosurgery.
Hopkins’ daughter Amy McIntire told USA TODAY she is furious Schneider was hired and floored by the national policy that allowed it.
“I’m appalled by the ineptitude at the VA,” said McIntire, a registered nurse who noted that an agency so large has numerous staffers to write policies and ensure they comply with federal law. “For it just to be ignored, it’s crazy.”
A group of 14 senators from both parties wrote to Shulkin this month asking about the hiring and oversight of health care workers with known histories of malpractice and license discipline. That followed letters from Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Iowa Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, who said it was “unacceptable that it was only as a result of USA TODAY’s report that the VA determined that hiring this neurosurgeon was illegal.”
Monday, 31 members of the House of Representatives fired off letters to the VA secretary expressing “extreme concern.”
“The hiring of doctors who have had their medical licenses revoked in any state is already prohibited,” wrote 30 of the lawmakers, including members of the Veterans Affairs Committee.
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., demanded in his own letter that Shulkin launch a nationwide review to identify other VA health care workers with malpractice complaints and settlements or sanctions for poor care.