Three reputable hospitals in Illinois were recently accused of fraud for manipulating the diagnoses of transplant patients in order to improve the chances that the patients receive new livers.

Some patients were hospitalized in intensive care or given a more urgent transplant status to make them eligible for precious livers from organ donors.

According to Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, manipulating these patients’ conditions, placed them ahead of other patients who were already waiting for organs in the transplant region.

“Organ donation can be a matter of life and death. There is no room for fraud when it comes to deciding which patients receives an organ,” said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, in the joint statement.

The University of Chicago Hospitals paid $115,000 in fines; Northwestern Memorial Hospital paid $23,587 in fines. Neither institution offered a denial or admission of guilt in the suits.

The University of Illinois Hospital was sued for $3 million.

According to the suit, the improper diagnoses were used to meet the minimum number of liver transplants to qualify for government health insurance programs.

Nearly 20,000 Americans are currently awaiting liver transplants, while only 5,000 transplants are actually performed each year. Waiting lists are compiled by the United Network for Organ Sharing, based on patients’ needs and other factors. 

SOURCE: Reuters  Health, www.reuters.com, July 28, 2003.