Patient care in question as Georgia company settles federal lawsuit – By Ariel Hart (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) / April 5, 2024
The Radiology Group is to pay $3.1 million for using unlicensed people in India to interpret radiology scans
An Atlanta-based national radiology practice has agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle a federal lawsuit accusing it of outsourcing medical imaging work to contractors in India and then rubber-stamping their findings. But the settlement has not resolved the troubling questions about whether patients received misdiagnoses as a result.
In announcing the settlement, the Department of Justice said that health care providers throughout the U.S. relied on reports submitted by The Radiology Group, but the company failed to conduct meaningful reviews of reports performed by non-licensed workers in India. One company radiologist, who issued more than 100,000 reports, frequently approved, signed and transmitted interpretation reports of CT scans in less than 30 seconds. Aside from the writeup, CT scans may have from fifty to more than 1,000 images to review, a series of pictures much like the cells in a cartoon film reel.
