A Georgia physician wasn’t a hospital employee who qualified for whistleblower protection under a federal emergency care law after reporting his “reasonable belief” that the facility’s patient transfer policy was illegal, a federal court said.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act extends whistleblower protections to reporting employees, but the doctor here was employed by a group that contracted to provide physician services to the facility, the US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia said Wednesday. Contract physicians aren’t hospital employees, and the law’s whistleblower protections don’t apply to them, Judge Marc T. Treadwell said.
The emergency law ...
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An appellate court is expected to rule any day in a major whistleblower case. The decision could reshape how the False Claims Act is enforced and might even reach the Supreme Court. For nursing fa...