The Center for Modern Surgery in Secaucus, N.J., has been fined $76,500 by the state Department of Health for more than a dozen safety violations, according to a March 4 report from NJ.com.
The center was presented with a 12-page penalty letter citing 14 different violations. It has 30 days to appeal the findings, which were discovered during inspections in June and September.
The facility "put patients at an immediate risk of serious harm" when three physicians performed 13 surgeries they were not approved to do "through credentialing, in accordance with the facility's bylaws," according to the letter.
Four of 11 patients whose records were reviewed were transferred to a hospital after complications arose from their procedures.
The penalty for the 13 violations totaled $32,500. Multiple violations involved allowing procedures to be performed by physicians whose certifications had expired or who lacked clinical privileges, according to the report. Others involved the failure to enter physicians' orders into patients' records.
The center is also accused of failing to identify an alternate administrator and an alternate director of nursing.
It was charged an additional $12,500 for failure to "ensure that adequate post-surgical assessments were conducted in five of 11 reviewed medical records," according to the letter.
The facility also allegedly does not have a policy in place or written emergency guidelines for when to call 911.
The Center for Modern Surgery is a freestanding outpatient multispecialty surgical facility and claims it has the distinction of being one of only "a few surgery centers in the U.S. that performs major Gynecologic procedures safely and effectively," according to its website.