Doc linked to hepatitis C outbreak pleads guilty to Medicare fraud, and other news

The physician owner of a Nevada clinic linked to a deadly hepatitis C outbreak pleaded guilty in federal court April 2 to Medicare fraud.

Dr. Dipak Desai, who owned the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, admitted to healthcare fraud and conspiring with others to systematically overcharge Medicare, Medicaid and other private health insurers for anesthesia billing as part of a plea agreement. Desai's practice significantly exaggerated the amount of time certified registered nurse anesthetists spent with patients, court documents show.

As part of the agreement, Desai will have to pay restitution of $2.2 million and may serve whatever sentence is imposed concurrently with his sentence from a previous conviction.

A jury convicted Desai in state court in 2013 of second-degree murder, among dozens of other criminal counts, related to a hepatitis C outbreak. A state investigation found that unsafe injection practices related to the administration of anesthesia—such as re-using syringes and using single dose vials of anesthesia on multiple patients—might have exposed patients to other patients' blood. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 9 in Reno, Nev.

Seventeen law professors from across the country are urging a federal appeals court to rehear the antitrust case against Idaho's St. Luke's Health System.

The professors filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking it to grant St. Luke's request for a rehearing before a full panel of judges. Earlier this year, a three-judge panel of the court decided against St. Luke's, saying its acquisition of Saltzer Medical Group in Nampa, Idaho, was anti-competitive.

“Antitrust law should properly recognize efficiencies and allow defendants to demonstrate efficiencies,” according to the brief. It also states that the professors, along with the International Center of Law and Economics, are concerned the earlier decision “will prevent or undo beneficial mergers and thereby have adverse effects on consumer welfare.”

But David Ettinger, a lawyer for St. Luke's rival St. Alphonsus Health System, said the new brief repeats arguments already made and rejected by the 9th Circuit and misstates many of the factual conclusions made by the courts.

The case has gained attention because it's the first one the courts have handled involving a hospital system's practice acquisition challenged by the Federal Trade Commission.