A number of Yankton-area residents are suing Avera Sacred Heart Hospital, Lewis & Clark Specialty Hospital, and doctors and administrators who allowed disgraced physician Dr. Allen Sossan to malpractice in Yankton and subject numerous patients to costly, unnecessary, and perhaps fatal surgeries. Now those doctors appear to have gotten the Yankton Medical Clinic, Yankton Medical Clinic Pharmacy, and Vermillion Medical Clinic to ban those plaintiffs from seeking service at their facilities.
The decision means that the patients who are being cut off will have to find new medical providers. In rural South Dakota and Nebraska, that could require patients to have to travel long distances for basic medical care.
Tim Bockholt, and his sister Judith, were among the patients who are being banned by the Yankton Medical Clinic. The Bockholts’ mother died after undergoing more than a dozen surgeries by Sossan in a year.
Tim Bockholt sees a cardiologist and a family practice doctor at Yankton Medical Clinic. None of the doctors who are being sued for credentialing Sossan provide care to either he or his sister, he said.
Bockholt now faces the prospect of traveling 50 miles to Norfolk, Neb., or 70 miles to Dakota Dunes. The travel will be harder for his sister, who suffered a stroke three years ago [Jonathan Ellis, “Clinic Severing Ties with Patients Suing Former Spine Surgeon,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2015.09.06].
South Dakota cribs its physician code of ethics verbatim from the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics, Clause 6 of which says, “A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical care. I suspect physicians are not the only professionals who would exclude people who are suing them from their place of business.
But Clause 9 says, “A physician shall support access to medical care for all people.” Clause 6 and Clause 9 bump into each other in a rural community like Yankton, where there aren’t many cardiologists or clinics to choose from. That lack of alternatives makes it harder for patients to take action to hold physicians accountable. If your doctor screws up, but you’re in a one-clinic town, are you going to make waves and risk having to drive two counties over to find a clinic that will treat what ails you?
As in any monopoly situation, the exclusive power rural health care providers have in their communities demands even greater vigilance from state regulators. The South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners must hold South Dakota’s doctors and other health care providers to even higher standards to ensure those professionals cannot secure positions in rural communities where they can exploit their monopoly power to insulate themselves from accountability.
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By the way, Ellis reports that Sossan is hiding out in Iran. Maybe President Obama’s nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions will help us persuade Iran to extradite Sossan so he can face justice.
Malpractice is a very tough lawsuit to execute. Getting Doctors (usually from CA) to testify as to mistakes by another Doctor is very costly. I hope these banned patients end up owning that clinic but it’s very hard to win. It’s good for the case that the quack has flown the coop, though.
What is our Lt. Governor doing about these medical refugees?
From my own experience (1983 until 20011), patients simply saw another physician at any clinic if they had filed a suit for medical harm…can’t remember any patient ever having been terminated from care by an entire physician group…in this era of healthcare consolidation, termination from medical care by any group of providers will become the most effective barrier to seeking redress for medical mistakes…should put malpractice attorneys and malpractice insurers out of business…and forever silence harmed patients…
Lars, thank for that note from your experience. I, too, am surprised that these litigants would draw a clinic-wide ban. Are these doctors effectively saying, “Don’t sue us or our colleagues, or you’ll never get treatment in this town again”?
96, that’s a very good question about our defendant Lt. Gov’s role in ensuring quality health care for all South Dakotans.
Banning established patients from medical service is an extreme and not a particularly sentient reaction. Did no one stop and think how this reflects on the medical integrity of the Clinic? They appear to be retaliating in behalf of Sossan. And are there no other physicians nearby that the Bockholts could see?
This post and your linked one on the role of Matt Michels raises the question of medical boards of examiners and whether they serve any function other than as a chamber of commerce for the professions. The story by Ellis cites a number of instances in which physicians have referred situations to the Medical Board which were either rejected or not acted upon.
This legality of imposing secrecy on proceedings that deal with matters, such as life and death, of profound public interest is pervasive throughout South Dakota government, like metastatic cancer. It hides and therefore encourages, even endorses, criminal activity–and subjecting humans to false surgeries is criminal. One doctor who reviewed Sassons’ work called it a criminal assault.
The state Bar Association has a similar history. It hides and protects incompetence and malfeasance. After a judge threw out the prosecution of Taliaferro and Schwab noting that it was contrived out of retaliation involved in internal politics, no one in the legal profession made any attempts to point out it was a malicious prosecution, tantamount to a false surgery.
The next big and over-arching public initiative needs to be a law or constitutional amendment that requires all proceedings, including personnel and contractual matters, that have bearing on public health, safety, and oversight over those acting in public behalf be open and accessible to public knowledge.
“The next big and over-arching public initiative needs to be a law or constitutional amendment that requires all proceedings, including personnel and contractual matters, that have bearing on public health, safety, and oversight over those acting in public behalf be open and accessible to public knowledge.”
Can’t say it better myself. We have a school board that probably spends as much or more time in executive session than it does in regular session.
Black listing patients is a very common in hospitals in all 50 states. This secret betrayal of public trust is nothing less than premeditated battary, inflicting mental, psycal harm. Like all medical crimes, viewed as the standard of care. I am glad someone is making this public.
I’ve read about that criminal Sossan elsewhere, like Wapo, NY Times, etc. He’s well-known and not one word of it has been good. They need to get his filthy ass out of Iran and into an American court.
The clinics that barred Sossan’s victims have no business being doctors. The best response would be a mass patient exodus.
It seems South Dakota authorities are more interested in prosecuting Dr. Bosworth for “butchering” a political form than providing medical care for South Dakota citizens!
Fugitive doc in Iran provides wingnuts with a perfect excuse to bomb,bomb,bomb,bomb,bomb Iran.
Boycott, Deb? Not a bad idea… although in some small towns, that would mean organizing carpools to the next county.
AllPoints Health Services appears to offer an alternative in Yankton. Perhaps the plaintiffs need to organize some consumer action.
The ability to terminate the care of patients, who seek redress for medical mistakes/harm, adds a new twist of absolute protectionism to corporate healthcare’s goal of complete immunity from any malpractice litigation…this situation cries for a completely different approach to help patients and their families who have suffered from medical misfortunes – whether accidental, through negligence, or otherwise…
This stands as the complete opposite of what Gov. George S. Mickelson championed with the creation of the Office of Rural Health and outside-the-box thinking to increase accessible and affordable health care outside the magnet hospitals.
There is a different approach at the University of Michigan Health System: court litigation is avoided, errors are acknowledged, apologies are offered, and settlements are made…this system has cost less money and undoubtedly has made medical care safer…