STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is fighting allegations in a Nevada state court that it shared responsibility for the actions of a Las Vegas doctor who allegedly gave his colonoscopy patients hepatitis C by mishandling an anesthetic.
An attorney for two women who sued the doctor, Dipak Desai, 62, a former gastroenterologist, allege that UnitedHealth's Health Plan of Nevada is partly at fault because it continued to renew contracts with the doctor despite knowing about his allegedly substandard medical practices.
Under Nevada law, an HMO must file annual reports showing it has reviewed the quality of health services provided to consumers covered by its plans.
The two women, Bonnie Brunson and Helen Meyer, said they contracted the disease after being treated by Desai in 2005.
Lawrence Scarborough, an attorney for Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth, denied the allegations in court Thursday, saying the women's plight was the fault of Desai, who "cared more about money than about his patients' safety and health," Bloomberg News reported. UnitedHealth shouldn't be blamed, he said.
In a statement Friday, Health Plan of Nevada, an HMO that is Nevada's largest medical insurer and a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, said the case would set a dangerous precedent if insurers were found to be financially responsible for the actions of individual doctors.
"Making insurers liable for the criminal actions of independent doctors will force those insurers to seek intrusive, burdensome and expensive oversight of how care is delivered, which none of us want," the health plan said.
