A whistleblower lawsuit alleging a Kansas oncologist provided medically unnecessary services is the second suit to question his practices, according to The Wichita Eagle.
The newspaper reported on Sunday that Viran Roger Holden, the former chair of the Mercy Clinic oncology department in Springfield, Missouri, claims he was fired after raising questions about Greg Nanney, a cancer doctor who now works for Central Care Cancer Center in Newton and Great Bend, Kansas, and in Bolivar, Missouri.
Nanney formerly worked at Mercy Clinic, which used to be known as St. John’s Clinic. Before that, he practiced in rural areas in Kansas and at Hutchinson Clinic, according to The Eagle.
Holden’s lawsuit says that both Nanney and Steven Braun, a radiation oncologist who worked with Nanney and remains employed by Mercy, treated patients “in a manner that would maximize reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, while disregarding well-established national cancer treatment guidelines,” The Eagle reported.
The newspaper said Nanney did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Holden’s complaint says Mercy told him it was firing him for cause after it questioned him about a relationship he had with a co-worker and about two prescriptions he wrote for a patient three years earlier.
A previous lawsuit was filed against Mercy Clinic by Hyewon “Helen” Kim, a radiation oncologist who was the hospital’s medical director. Kim alleged that Nanney was let go by the clinic in July 2012 because of “substandard care to patients, and jeopardizing their safety,” according to The Eagle.
Kim’s lawsuit alleges that Kim observed several violations by Nanney and Braun of medical standards affecting patient safety, including concurrent chemoradiation therapy, “which resulted in financial gain” for the clinic, the newspaper reported.
Mercy has denied Kim’s allegations in court documents.
Holden, who gave deposition testimony in Kim’s lawsuit, says Mercy placed him on administrative leave a little more than a month after he was deposed and subsequently fired him.
Dan Margolies, editor of the Heartland Health Monitor team, is based at KCUR.
