An Appalachian Kentucky hospital that’s been among the nation’s leaders in the rate of coronary stenting is under federal investigation for implanting the metal mesh devices needlessly, according to its spokesman.
Federal prosecutors have been probing King’s Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, Kentucky, since 2011 for suspected overstenting, said Tom Dearing, the 373-bed hospital’s marketing and public relations manager.
The investigation involves stents inserted by the heart center’s namesake, cardiologist Richard E. Paulus, according to his lawyer, Robert S. Bennett of Hogan Lovells in Washington. Bennett said Paulus had done nothing wrong.
The investigation signals a new front in a series of Department of Justice probes into interventional cardiology and stenting that began surfacing in 2006. At least 11 hospitals have settled federal allegations that they billed public health programs for needless stents and related misdeeds. Federal investigations continue in five states.
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Earlier this month, another Kentucky doctor, Sandesh Patil, became the third U.S. cardiologist convicted on federal charges linked to doing needless stents. He was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Frankfort, Kentucky, to 30 months behind bars, after pleading guilty to a single charge of Medicaid fraud.
Stents, the tiny coils inserted into arteries with catheters to prop open coronary blockages, can save lives of heart-attack victims. Their use in stable patients is in dispute among medical researchers.
Date: Oct 7, 2013