Shirin Harrell

It’s hard to believe that operations on the wrong body part or on the wrong patient still happen. Yet, according to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (“JCAHO”), surgeons have operated on the wrong leg, eye, kidney or other body part 150 times since 1996. Most of the time these cases are quietly settled, but sometimes they become headline news.

The United States Attorney in Boston recently announced the settlement of a health-care-fraud case involving five urologists and TAP Pharmaceutical Products, Inc., a major American pharmaceutical manufacturer. The government alleged that the urologists received illegal inducements from TAP to prescribe the drug Lupron in the 1990’s.