Thursday, Dec. 18, 1997
HMO agrees to pay family of man who died while awaiting treatment
Associated Press
DALLAS -- An HMO has agreed to pay $5.35 million to a family who
claimed that medical cost-cutting led to a man's death from untreated
heart disease.
Lawyers for the family of Ronald
Henderson alleged that a plan by Kaiser Permanente's North Texas HMO to
cut hospital expenses by 45 percent, plus an HMO official's speech that
stressed putting ``the bottom line'' first, led to the 56-year-old
man's death.
The HMO agreed to the settlement Tuesday
after a test jury in a novel nonbinding minitrial said it would have
awarded the family more than 10 times that amount if the case had gone
to an actual trial.
The experimental two-day procedure
in District Judge John M. Marshall's court is aimed at encouraging
out-of-court settlements.
The family said Kaiser
doctors discharged Henderson from a hospital without referring him to a
cardiologist. They also presented evidence that Kaiser's medical-advice
nurses gave him bad instructions by telephone.
Family
lawyer Randall Moore said the case was brought ``to take note of our
belief that too many people are dying in their system.''
Kaiser denied wrongdoing and argued that Henderson was an overweight
smoker who did not obey doctors' orders. Its lawyers denied that
cost-cutting had anything to do with the Irving man's death and accused
the family's lawyers of trying to divert attention from specific
medical issues.
Kaiser spokesman David O'Grady said the
settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing, but ``enables us to
return our focus to providing our members quality health care -- to
move from the courtroom back to the exam room.''
Kaiser
expressed displeasure with the minitrial process, saying the ``verdict
was not a real verdict, the damages are not real damages, this was not
a real trial.''
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