The Texas Supreme Court has rejected a physician’s whistleblower suit against UT Southwestern Medical Center, according to Culture Map Dallas.
The court said tenured professor Larry Gentilello, MD, did not notify the right authority about his claims of fraud when he told his supervisor, Robert Rege, MD, chairman of the department of surgery, of allegedly improper billing practices in the hospital’s emergency room.
Gentilello later sued UT’s medical school for retaliation in 2007, claiming he was demoted and barred from the operating room after he notified Dr. Rege of the alleged fraud, according to the report. Under Texas’ whistleblower act, employees are protected from retaliation only if they report what they believe is a law violation to the appropriate law enforcement agency, the report said. The appropriate authority in this case, the court said, was the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
