MA Doctor Profiles Leave Out Accusations Of Fraud, Assault: Report

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts state law does not require details of certain legal cases, which can include accusations of fraud and sexual assault, to be included in the state's database of physician profiles, Boston25 found in an investigation.

While the law requires the state's Board of Medicine to make public details about board disciplinary action, restrictions on clinical privileges, criminal convictions for felonies and serious misdemeanors, and court judgments, settlements, and arbitration awards specifically related to medical malpractice, the board is not required to publicize Department of Justice settlements, state audits, or the outcomes of civil lawsuits unrelated to malpractice, the outlet reported.

This means that in certain cases, such as that of Dr. Hooshang Poor—a geriatric physician who worked in at least 91 senior homes across Massachusetts from 2012 to 2015 alone—patients cannot easily find details of allegations against him including billing fraud, improper prescribing of highly addictive drugs, and sexual assault, Boston25 found, citing legal documents.

Poor's profile also fails to mention that Massachusetts’ medical board put him on probation in 2018 for allegedly providing poor care to four vulnerable nursing home patients while he was affiliated with New England Baptist Hospital, according to Boston25. Court documents say that Poor failed to thoroughly evaluate a man with a gastrointestinal bleed and mental health concerns, a woman with congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive lung disease, a woman with intense back pain, and a woman with congestive heart failure and renal failure.

To find a copy of Poor's agreement for his probation—which ended last May—and other board records, users have to go to another section of the board's website.

Poor is also set to go to trial in September in a lawsuit filed by a former nurse who said Poor sexually assaulted her in a now-closed Canton nursing home in 2016, when she said Poor put his hand on her back and groped her back, buttocks, up her legs and between her thighs as she stood at the nurse's station. In other cases which have been settled, Poor was accused of improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid and prescribing patients controlled substances without checking their prescription histories, Boston25 reported.

Carmen Durst, a lawyer who represents the former nurse who filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Poor, told the outlet that "you have to physically go through an internet search for each individual" doctor to attempt to find their full legal history.

“Of the 14 counties that we have, each county has their own Superior Court and they have separate dockets," Durst said. "You have to go through all that. You have to know where to search, how to search. So, no, the average person is not going to find out everything.”

Read the full report at Boston25.