Filenews 12 February 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
A gynaecologist at a General Health System hospital christened scheduled caesarean sections as urgent and submitted requests for greater compensation to the Health Insurance Organization.
The on-the-spot checks of the HIO and the cross-checking of the doctor's compensation claims with the files of the women he underwent in an "urgent" caesarean section, left him exposed and not only, since he is now required to pay €15,000 fine himself and another €10,000 the hospital where he performed the caesarean sections.
This gynaecologist, as we are informed, was put under the microscope of the HIO when through the GHS computer system it was found that he was performing a large number of caesarean sections and several of them were even presented in the software as "complicated".
The audit carried out on what he entered in the GHS software raised several questions, resulting in the HIO then carrying out an audit at the hospital where he works, referring to a number of files of women whom he had served.
Data in the women's files showed that most of the complicated and emergency caesarean sections had performed could not be documented. In order to confirm its suspicions, the HIO invited an expert with whom it works to give its own conclusions based on the available data. Subsequently, and since the expert's opinion was the same as that formed by the competent department of the HIO, the doctor and the hospital where the caesarean sections were performed were fined.
In January, fines totalling €34,300 were imposed. They concerned, in addition to this gynaecologist and the hospital with which he cooperates, another gynaecologist, a rheumatologist who seems to have performed medical procedures that were not documented, a hospital that failed to register the data of patients it served and a physiotherapist.
The second gynaecologist was fined €1,000, the rheumatologist €4,000, the hospital €3,000 and the physiotherapist €300.
In addition to the fines imposed, the HIO recovered from these GHS health service providers the amount of €17,000.
