Mississippi Today

Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine will close following settlement with UMMC in federal trade secrets lawsuit

Published

1 month ago

November 15, 2024

mississippitoday.org – Gwen Dilworth – 2024-11-15 05:00:00

A settlement in a federal trade secrets case will force a Madison health care center that treats children with complex medical conditions to close by the end of the year and prohibit its founding doctor and CEO from practicing medicine in Mississippi ever again.

The Oct. 18 agreement concludes a seven-year legal battle between the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine that began after pediatric hematologist Dr. Spencer Sullivan, the former director of UMMC’s Children’s Hemophilia Treatment Center, struck out to form the private, for-profit medical organization in 2016.

Three doctors who practiced at the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine will form a new private practice in Flowood next year, according to business filings and the clinic’s website.

The center served over 9,500 patients from every Mississippi county in 2022 and employed over 100 staff members during the 2023 fiscal year, according to a recent court filing. The clinic provides subspecialty medical care, including hematology, pediatric cardiology and pediatric rheumatology, and operates a clinical pharmacy and pediatric urgent care.

Mississippi has just under 18 specialty pediatricians per 100,000 children, the lowest rate in the Southeast and the third lowest in the country, according to data from The American Board of Pediatrics.

The center served as a safety net for pediatric subspecialty care in 2022 when UMMC went out of network with Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state’s largest provider of private health insurance.

The legal conflict between the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine and UMMC began in state court, but after new evidence was uncovered in 2018, UMMC filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Sullivan and the Center for Advanced Medicine violated federal trade secrets law by utilizing confidential patient and hospital financial information to open the new health center.

Judge Carlton Reeves ruled in favor of UMMC in October 2021 in federal court, writing that evidence in the case “reveals a clear, persistent pattern of perjury, evidence destruction, and concealment.” A trial on damages was delayed several times before the parties reached a settlement agreement in October.

Sullivan will be forced to relinquish his Mississippi medical license for life and close all clinic locations in Mississippi by Dec. 31. The Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine must “indicate that UMMC is the institution in Mississippi that can best meet the patients’ medical care and pharmacy needs” in a letter notifying patients it is closing, according to the agreement.

Sullivan and the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine will be liable for $28.3 million if any terms of the contract are breached.

The center filed for bankruptcy in April 2023, and submitted a plan of liquidation in accordance with the terms of the settlement agreement on Oct. 31. Since opening, the center has either lost money or yielded a modest profit and faced various financial struggles, including loss of physicians to private practice and legal fees, according to the plan of liquidation.

Sullivan declined to comment for this article, and UMMC did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today.

Pediatric hematologist and oncologist Dr. Sharon Pennington, the Chief Medical Information Officer for the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, is listed as the registered agent of a new private practice in Flowood, shows a business filing publicly available on the Secretary of State’s website.

The clinic will open in January 2025. Dr. Whitney Herring and Dr. Michael Mattingly, medical directors for pediatric metabolic medicine and pediatric and fetal cardiology at the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, respectively, will also join the clinic, according to its website.

Pennington and Mattingly declined to comment for this story. Herring did not respond to Mississippi Today by press time.

A legal saga

One year after Sullivan left his post at UMMC to form the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, UMMC filed a lawsuit in state court alleging that he had violated the terms of his contract, including a non-compete clause, causing damages to the hospital. UMMC alleged that Sullivan was motivated to leave after he learned of the Hemophilia Treatment Center’s high revenue.

In Sullivan’s employment contract with UMMC, he agreed not to engage in a clinical practice within a 25 mile radius from UMMC, hire recent UMMC employees or use any patient information or lists to encourage them to leave UMMC after departing the hospital.

UMMC alleged that Sullivan took 80% of the patients he treated while practicing at UMMC to his new clinic which he staffed with UMMC employees, including pediatric rheumatologist Dr. Nina Washington, his codefendant in the case.

Children’s of Mississippi at UMMC is the state’s only dedicated children’s hospital and offers a wide range of pediatric subspecialty care. Each year, the hospital treats about 150,000 children, the majority of whom are enrolled in Medicaid.

Sullivan and Washington argued in a counterclaim that the Hemophilia Treatment Center facilities and staffing were “woefully inadequate,” and that mold and cockroaches were “pervasive.” They contended that because of the poor conditions of their employment, UMMC, too, had breached the terms of its contracts.

An amended complaint filed by UMMC in November of 2017 broadened the hospital’s allegations against Sullivan, alleging that Sullivan had obtained a confidential patient list and financial information which he used to solicit patients and establish the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine.

After an article about the lawsuit appeared in the Clarion-Ledger in 2018 that referenced the confidential patient list, the ex-husband of Linnea McMillan, a nurse who left UMMC to join Sullivan’s practice, turned a printed patient list he found in McMillan’s car in 2016 over to UMMC.

The discovery prompted UMMC to file a federal trade secrets lawsuit in June 2019, naming Sullivan, the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine, McMillan and former UMMC staff members Kathryn Sue Stevens and Rachel Henderson as defendants.

Sullivan directed McMillan and Stevens to compile the patient list in the spring of 2016 while working at UMMC as he prepared to open his new practice, alleged UMMC in the lawsuit.

Defendants denied taking or using the list until March 2020, when Henderson admitted that she lied in her deposition, and along with Sullivan, Stevens and McMillan, possessed and used the list at the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine.

She also produced nearly 1,500 pages of previously unproduced text messages, which revealed that Harris, Stevens and McMillan shredded the patient list to conceal evidence in the case.

Henderson was dismissed from the case after coming forward with new information.

Sullivan committed perjury by falsely claiming he did not possess an external hard drive with files from UMMC, determined the federal judge. Sullivan produced the drive only after a magistrate judge forced him to choose between producing the hard drives or his computer.

“A review of the voluminous record in the case reveals a clear persistent pattern of perjury, evidence destruction, and concealment,” wrote Reeves in his default judgment in favor of UMMC.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1997

Published

20 minutes ago

December 22, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.

In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”

He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”

The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

Published

2 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.

The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.

Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.

During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.

“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”

White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.

Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.

White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.

Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.

People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.

White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.

They are correct.

But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.

As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.

Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.

That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.

Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?

If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.

The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

Published

1 day ago

December 21, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.

When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.

He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.

The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.

Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.