Harold Levy and Evan Schwartz once again convinced a court to strike down a decision by the New York Workers’ Compensation Board that revoked a doctor’s privileges to treat patients and bill for services governed by the Workers’ Compensation system. In the first round of the battle, we persuaded the court that the Board did not follow proper procedures. In the second victory the court faced the issue head on, finding that the Board’s conduct was “excessive,” “totally unreasonable,” and an abuse of discretion.
Our client had been disciplined by the governing body that supervises doctors because certain paper records from a testing machine, akin to a tape roll from an adding machine, were not kept for an extended period of time along with the other evidence of the test’s results. He subsequently purchased expensive digital equipment that saves the voluminous back-up data on hard drives, thus fixing the massive storage problem he had experienced.
The court challenges were mounted by Harold Levy and Evan Schwartz of Schwartz, Conroy & Hack. The court was not only persuaded that the revocation of the privileges was excessive, but that there is an apparent issue with the Board’s implementation of a new law allowing the revocation: in every case so far, the doctor’s privileges were revoked entirely, with no discretion having been exercised as to possible appropriate lesser measures taken to address problems.
The court ordered the Board to reinstate the doctor’s privileges immediately. The Workers’ Compensation patients account for approximately 20% of our client’s practice.
Evan S. Schwartz
Founder of Schwartz, Conroy & Hack
800-745-1755
ESS@schwartzlawpc.com