“Government officials grappling with the nationwide opioid crisis, from the sandy beaches of Florida to the far reaches of the Alaskan frontier, have filed lawsuits against drug companies at a steady clip this year. These suits seek to hold manufacturers and distributors financially responsible for the strain on public services that drug addiction has caused.
Now local officials in West Virginia — the state with the nation’s highest drug death rate — have taken aim at a different target: the medical experts who recommended their use. This past week the cities and towns of Huntington, Charleston, Kenova, and Ceredo filed a class-action lawsuit against the Joint Commission, the influential nonprofit that both inspects hospitals’ performance and sets practice standards for their physicians. Hospitals must abide by the group’s standards, on opioids or anything else, in order to get reimbursed for care provided to Medicaid and Medicare patients.”
Read more at: https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/07/opioid-lawsuit-hospital-accreditor/
Source: StatNews.com – November 7, 2017
