Two surgeons have filed a whistleblower complaint against Corvallis, Ore.-based Samaritan Health Services, according to an Oct. 15 item in The Lund Report .
The suit, filed by Kevin Day, MD, and Richard Havard, MD, comes almost a year after their termination led to the sudden closure of Samaritan Plastic, Reconstructive & Hand Surgery. According to the report, the closure "sparked a local uproar as breast cancer patients planning mastectomies were suddenly left in limbo."
The pair were the only two reconstructive surgeons in the city, KEZI 9 reported at the time of the firing.
The suit alleges that Samaritan's "top-heavy" and "profit-focused" management resulted in sudden cancellations of entire days of surgery, with little or no notice in some cases, and made it "progressively more difficult to secure the resources [the physicians] required to provide timely, quality care to their patients."
The suit further alleges that Samaritan's "cost-saving" measures included the denial of requests for certain equipment and opting for "cheaper but shoddy operating room supplies," and the purchase of a $1 million DaVinci robotic system that has gone mostly unused due to the fact that there is no operating room large enough to house the robot.
The lawsuit alleges that these complaints, among others detailed in the lawsuit, amount to a violation of Oregon law that "imposes upon physicians a duty to treat their patients with the same degree of care, skill and diligence used by ordinarily careful physicians in the same or similar circumstances within their community or similar communities."
Dr. Harvard initially owned the practice, which was purchased by Samaritan in 2007 under former CEO Larry Mullins, who stepped down f in 2017. Drs. Day and Havard both described being "largely satisfied" with their practice at Samaritan at this point.
According to the lawsuit, the physicians began developing concerns about the practice and their ability to adequately care for their patients beginning in 2019, under the tenure of Doug Boysen, who had taken over as CEO. Samaritan also created Samaritan Medical Group at this time to ostensibly support physician autonomy, but in turn "simply insulated Samaritan's administration from clinical concerns," according to the lawsuit.
Around 2019 is when Samaritan, under Mr. Boysen's leadership, began decreasing the physician's access to block OR time and "appeared to erroneously assume that most of their patients sought purely elective cosmetic surgeries," when in reality, many of Dr. Havard and Dr. Day's patients sought breast reconstructions following mastectomies for cancer treatment.
The physicians also allege that they were increasingly forced into cramped operating rooms, including one incident in which the OR lost power in the middle of a mastectomy and lymph node removal. Facilities engineers allegedly entered the room to address the issue wearing "bunny suits" over their street clothes, increasing the risk of infection and further cramping one of the smallest ORs in the hospital.
Through 2021, the lawsuit alleges that OR conditions continued to deteriorate and that Samaritan administration continued to ignore Drs. Day and Havard's concerns that the cost-saving approach by Samaritan was chipping away at the quality of care within the facility.
The physicians escalated their complaints into October 2023. Samaritan placed Dr. Harvard on administrative leave for a week over "retaliatory behavior" in a conversation with an administrator over Microsoft Teams, according to the lawsuit. Samaritan then expected Dr. Day to perform a breast reconstruction surgery on one of Dr. Havard's patients the following day, according to the suit, which Dr. Day described as a "tall ask" considering he had never met the patient and did not have a plan for her operation.
The following day was a "disaster," according to the suit, as an administrator began demanding that Dr. Day's staff "reschedule appointments in ways that violated their typical patient care and follow-up procedures." An assistant was fired for refusing this task. Samaritan then terminated Dr. Havard after his administrative leave ended in November. Dr. Day was fired a day later.
Drs. Havard and Day are seeking $4.5 million total in economic and noneconomic damages, according to the lawsuit.
“We have reviewed the allegations outlined in the documents shared with us by the media and vehemently deny them. Our fundamental duty is to take care of our patients and build healthier communities," Mr. Boysen said in a statement shared with Becker's. "Drs. Havard and Day were not aligned with our organizational values. It is very timely and expensive to recruit qualified physicians to the community, so we do not take lightly the decision to separate from any physicians."
He added that Samaritan has recruited a new plastic surgeon who started practicing earlier this month.