Health Care Provider Issues & Medical Malpractice

From information security, to wrong-site surgery, to infection control breaches, to medical malpractice, Rotenberg Associates knows how important strategic communications can be in health care. We are pleased to partner with healthcare communications specialist Joy Scott and her team at Scott PR in Los Angeles, to provide the full range of communications services that help our national healthcare clients advocate and tell their stories to their stakeholders during successes and challenges. Let Rotenberg Associates and its experienced professionals lead your organization through its most critical health-related communications.

Representative Health Care Provider Issues & Medical Malpractice Experience

Suicide of patient in a university hospital psychiatry unit leads to state and federal regulatory investigations and potential civil litigation.
Health system facing reputational issues following merger of hospitals with distinctive cultures and amid union negotiations and threatened strikes.
Patient violence against hospital medical providers leads to state and federal regulatory investigations and prominent news reports.
Hospital pathologist discovered to have misread pathology slides over many years raising fears that hundreds of patients may have been misdiagnosed as cancer positive or negative.
Internationally publicized medical malpractice litigation concerning erroneous cancer diagnosis and surgery, and patient’s subsequent efforts to change U.S. tort law
Medical provider’s disclosure of improper storage of children’s vaccines resulting in development of revaccination program for more than 5,000 patients
Numerous medical malpractice cases, including the three largest state jury verdicts against medical providers
Federal Qui Tam litigation concerning allegations of a kickback scheme and Medicare fraud against a medical clinic
Hospital managing major civil and criminal litigation involving medical providers accused of using imported, non-FDA-approved medical devices
Health system facing intense and repeated media investigative reports regarding prominent former surgeon
Erroneous lab report indicating false positive for sexually transmitted disease in child leading to patient’s father being charged with sexual abuse
HIPPA breach due to clinic loss of patient account data, potentially affecting thousands of patients
Wrongful death lawsuit regarding young patient who died of brain hemorrhage
Wrongful death lawsuit against clinic and surgeons following gastric band surgery
Disclosure issues following potential patient exposure to infection from defective medical instrument
Patient death from medication overdose during routine gynecologic surgery
Medication dosing error during testing by hospital, with family settlement negotiations playing out in media spotlight
Wrongful death of child verdict appeal to state Supreme Court
Physician’s reputation harmed by patient posting false and defamatory comments on various pregnancy and infant-related websites
Specialty clinic notification to patients of possible exposure to blood borne disease during clinic procedures and subsequent blood testing to rule out viral exposures
Defamatory online postings by mother who had newborn child taken away and placed in protective custody following emergency cesarean-section
Federal lawsuit against eye clinic for misleading advertising related to Lasik surgery
Failure of pharmaceutical company’s promising new drug in FDA phase three trials, threatening dramatic drop in stock price
Medical facility’s negative publicity resulting from a physician’s lab error
Theft and inadvertent disclosure of a prominent medical group’s patient data
Publication of unfavorable public review regarding a prominent medical group
Bankruptcy faced by prominent medical provider following excessive jury verdict
State medical board’s investigation, license review, and disciplinary action regarding physician treatment practices
Medicare fraud allegations against dental provider

Case Study

During a routine state health department inspection, a specialty health care clinic’s use of certain medical equipment was deemed unsafe, creating a risk of possible exposure to patients of deadly blood-borne illnesses. The clinic was required to contact thousands of patients to inform them of the state health department’s concern and offer free blood testing to rule out the transmission of blood disease. Rotenberg Associates, Washington, DC and Minneapolis, provided crisis communications counsel, media relations, and litigation communications to assist the client in managing patient notification, clinic operations, responding to local and national media inquiries, and class action lawsuit.