Author: WorkCompAcademy

Scott Shaw, a former San Jose State University (SJSU) Director of Sports Medicine, was sentenced to serve 24 months in prison for unlawfully touching female student-athletes under the guise of providing medical treatment. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Beth Labson Freeman, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California.

Shaw pleaded guilty to the charges on August 15, 2023. As part of the plea agreement, Shaw admitted that, between 2017 and 2020, he violated the civil rights of four students who played on women’s athletics teams by touching their breasts and buttocks without their consent and without a legitimate medical purpose.

According to court documents, from 2008 until August 2020, Shaw served as the Director of Sports Medicine and head athletic trainer at SJSU, a public university that is part of the California State University system, and was an employee of the State of California. His duties included treating injuries sustained by student-athletes at SJSU.

Shaw admitted that he engaged in all the conduct described above on SJSU’s campus, and in his capacity as an SJSU athletic trainer. Shaw admitted that female student-athletes allowed him to have physical contact with them only because of his status as an SJSU athletic trainer.

Shaw further acknowledged that female student-athletes sought treatment from him because they were in pain, seeking relief, and wanted to continue participating in SJSU Athletics. Further, the student-athletes trusted him because he was an experienced athletic trainer. Shaw also admitted that he inappropriately touched each of the student-athletes as described above without any legitimate diagnostic or treatment purpose and without seeking or securing their consent in advance. Shaw further admitted that his conduct was not the result of mistake, carelessness, or accident.

In sum, Shaw pleaded guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 242. In addition to the prison term, Judge Freeman ordered Shaw to serve one year of supervised release, to begin after he has served his prison term, and to pay a $15,000 fine. Judge Freeman also scheduled a hearing to take place on February 6, 2024, to determine issues related to restitution.

Judge Freeman ordered Shaw to surrender on or before March 6, 2024, to begin serving his prison term.

“Today’s sentence sends a clear message that public school officials who exploit their positions of authority to sexually abuse and harass students will face serious consequences for their actions,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department will not tolerate violations of civil rights committed under the guise of legitimate medical treatment by those in positions of power and trust.”

“Scott Shaw was entrusted to care for athletes in the California State University system. Instead, he used his power over female athletes to violate their civil rights by sexually groping them without their consent and without any medical justification,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Robbins for the Northern District of California. “Such criminal assaults on college athletes will be investigated and prosecuted; anyone abusing their power over student athletes in this way should expect to spend time in prison for doing so.”

“A patient necessarily places enormous trust in a healthcare provider; that relationship is privileged and inviolable for good reason,” said FBI Special Agent In Charge Robert Tripp. “Shaw’s violation of that relationship is reprehensible, as was reflected in his sentence. I commend the student athletes for their moral courage in coming forward to challenge Shaw. Their bravery prevented Shaw from committing further harm to others, and civil rights violations will continue to be a top priority for the FBI.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Pitman for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorney MarLa Duncan and Attorney Advisor Sarah Howard of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section are prosecuting the case. This case was investigated by the FBI.

The life expectancy of men in the U.S. is nearly six years shorter than that of women, according to new research published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

As life expectancy at birth in the US decreased for the second consecutive year, from 78.8 years (2019) to 77.0 years (2020) and 76.1 years (2021), the gap between women and men widened to 5.8 years, its largest since 1996 and an increase from a low of 4.8 years in 2010.

For more than a century, US women have outlived US men, attributable to lower cardiovascular and lung cancer death rates related largely to differences in smoking behavior.This study systematically examines the contributions of COVID-19 and other underlying causes of death to the widened gender life expectancy gap from 2010 to 2021.

“Across the world, women tend to live longer than men,” said Brandon Yan, a resident physician at the UCSF School of Medicine and a research collaborator at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who is the lead author of the study according to a review published by Stat News. (Both institutions collaborated in the research.)

But the widening gap should concern the U.S., Yan said, because it shows that baseline factors accounting for men’s lower longevity – genetics, men’s higher vulnerability to chronic disease – aren’t the sole reason for the difference in life expectancies.

“The opioid epidemic, mental health, and chronic metabolic disease are certainly front and center in the data that we see here, explaining why there’s this widening life expectancy gap by gender, as well as the overall drop in life expectancy,” said Yan. Men have higher mortality rates from all three conditions compared to women.

In addition, Yan notes, “a lot of these drivers of worsening life expectancy in particular for men are preventable causes of death.” Even Covid-19 could be considered a preventable cause of death in the time since vaccines have become available, he said.

The decline in life expectancy in the U.S. suggests that advancements in medical treatment are no longer sufficient to counter ongoing public health crises, Yan said. “We have a health care system that is very advanced in treating illnesses and advanced disease. But for the most part – it is not very good when it comes to preventative care.”

In the years leading to 2010, it was public health improvements – such as aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and the consequent reduction of deaths from respiratory illnesses and cancer – that led to the increased longevity and a reduced male-female gap in life expectancy.

The reasons that issues such as suicide or opioid overdose affect men more than women are complex. “There’s a substantial socio-cultural norms component to this data as well in terms of the ways that society views masculinity and the way that men ought to behave,” said Yan. “That has profound effects on care-seeking behaviors,” he said. Whether a man seeks care for mental health issues, for instance, or even goes to routine primary care visits and takes medications, may be impacted by ideas about masculinity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced the launch of Impact Wellbeing. This new campaign provides hospital leaders with evidence-informed resources to improve workplace policies and practices that reduce burnout, normalize help-seeking, and strengthen professional wellbeing.

“Even before the pandemic, healthcare workers faced challenging working conditions that lead to burnout. This includes long work hours, risk for hazardous exposures, stressful work, and high administrative burdens,” said John Howard, MD, Director of NIOSH. “Hospital leaders need support to implement organizational changes. Practical adjustments can reduce burnout and strengthen professional wellbeing within their hospitals.”

Impact Wellbeing supports hospital leaders, and in turn their healthcare workforce, by providing actionable steps to fine-tune quality improvements, establish new workflows, and help staff feel safe seeking help. To get started in operational-level solutions, practices, and policies for incremental, sustained impact, hospital leaders can access the following campaign resources:

– – NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ): Understand how your workforce is doing and identify ways to improve healthcare worker wellbeing.
– – Leadership Storytelling Guide: Help hospital leaders talk publicly about getting help for their own mental health concerns and encourage staff to do the same, using this guide from the Health Action Alliance.
– – Total Worker Health® Strategies: Train front-line supervisors to help their staff balance their work and home responsibilities using supportive supervision.

Additionally, hospital leaders can remove one of the most substantial system barriers to healthcare worker wellbeing – intrusive mental health questions on hospital credentialing applications. Auditing and changing hospital credentialing application questions removes barriers to care and sends a clear message to healthcare workers that their hospital supports their wellbeing and mental health.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation developed three simple steps hospital leaders can follow to make it safe for their healthcare workers to seek care.

“Like everyone, healthcare workers deserve the right to pursue mental health care without fear of losing their job because of stigmatizing and discriminatory questions,” said J. Corey Feist, JD, MBA, Co-Founder and President of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation. “My sister-in-law, Dr. Lorna Breen, experienced this barrier firsthand, confiding in our family that she was fearful of being ostracized at work if she acknowledged that she needed help. Shortly after, she died by suicide. Sadly, I have heard from numerous families who lost healthcare worker loved ones to suicide who expressed the same concerns as Lorna.”

For more than 50 years, NIOSH has empowered workers and employers, including hospital leaders, with strategies and resources to create sustainable, safe workplaces. Impact Wellbeing builds upon these efforts and speaks directly to hospital leaders to address the operational factors within hospitals that contribute to burnout.

“Although some causes of burnout may take time to address, there are many feasible ways to champion a healthy workforce and hospital system,” said Casey Chosewood, MD, MPH, Director of the Office for Total Worker Health at NIOSH. “By identifying and implementing practical operational adjustments, hospital leaders can help healthcare workers continue doing what they do best—delivering the highest quality patient care.”

Explore Impact Wellbeing resources at www.cdc.gov/impactwellbeing. Impact Wellbeing is made possible by the COVID-19 American Rescue Plan of 2021.  It builds on momentum from the passage of the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act.

Established under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, NIOSH is the federal research institute focused on the study of worker safety and health, and empowering employers and workers to create safe and healthy workplaces. For more information about NIOSH, visit www.cdc.gov/niosh/.

A third superseding indictment was just unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Brian Michael Sutton, Brycen Kay Millett, Anthony Santamaria, Joshua Manuel Alegria, Hershel Tsikman and Hafizullah Ebady with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud and money laundering conspiracy. As alleged, the defendants participated in an international scheme to acquire pharmacies across the United States with pre-existing relationships with private health insurance companies.

Using those pharmacies, in conjunction with call centers to induce individuals to accept unnecessary medications and a network of recruited physicians, the defendants generated more than $500 million in fraudulent prescriptions purportedly filled by the scheme pharmacies.

Santamaria, Alegria and Tsikman were arrested today in California and will be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Los Angeles. Millett and Ebady were previously indicted and arrested on health care fraud charges, and will be arraigned at a later date. Sutton remains at large and is believed to reside in Moscow.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI) announced the arrests and charges.

As alleged, between 2017 and 2022, Sutton, a U.S. citizen residing in Russia, led his co-defendants in carrying out an international scheme to bill private insurers for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent prescriptions. At Sutton’s direction, the conspirators oversaw call centers initially based in Utah, but later operated from Russia and other foreign nations.

Call center employees telephoned beneficiaries enrolled in private insurers’ health care plans and offered prescription medications at little to no cost to the beneficiaries and without any medical exam to determine the medical necessity for those medications.

The defendants also recruited doctors purportedly to review prescriptions by nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants after telemedicine visits. Contrary to what the recruited doctors were told, in many cases there were no telemedicine visits between the beneficiaries and any medical professionals. The conspirators generated fraudulent prescriptions under the physicians’ names and National Provider Identifier (NPI) numbers. Despite the prescriptions, many beneficiaries never received the medications.

To conceal their involvement, the defendants operated under multiple aliases, funneled millions of dollars through pass-through shell companies and straw owners, used end-to-end encrypted communications and moved operations overseas.

Specifically, the defendants purchased and operated dozens of existing brick-and-mortar pharmacies through straw owners including in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan and Alabama. The conspirators also laundered millions of dollars in fraudulent proceeds from overseas through pass-through shell companies that they used to purchase the scheme pharmacies and conceal the defendants’ involvement.

After acquiring the brick-and-mortar pharmacies, the conspirators oversaw the installation of pharmacy management software that allowed for the remote submission of reimbursement requests by the scheme pharmacies to private insurers; they also trained and supervised a team of “billers” that remotely submitted hundreds of thousands of reimbursement requests totaling over $500 million for over 50 pharmacies. Ultimately, private insurers paid over $280 million as a result of the fraudulent billing.

Co-conspirators Dela Saidazim pleaded guilty in February 2023 and David Gary Bishoff pleaded guilty in March 2023 to health care fraud conspiracy and are awaiting sentencing.

The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Business and Securities Fraud Section. Assistant United States Attorneys John Vagelatos, Jessica Weigel and Jonathan P. Lax are in charge of the prosecution with assistance from Paralegal Specialist William Daniels. Claire S. Kedeshian of the Office’s Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.

A farm owner has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after his worker was killed servicing an unsafe 16,000-pound spinach harvester.

The Santa Clara County Grand Jury returned an indictment against a Watsonville-based company, Willoughby Farms, and its owner, for causing the death of Carlos Jimenez Cruz. At approximately 4:30 a.m. on October 15, 2020, the 32-year-old victim was strangled to death when the hood on his clothing was caught in a spinning shaft on the machine.

David Willoughby, 50, the president of Willoughby Farms, Inc. was arraigned this week on felony charges. The corporation, along with an affiliated LLC, will be also be arraigned on the felony charges. The allegations include failing to provide adequate training to employees and failing to cover the dangerous parts of the machine, causing the death of Mr. Cruz. The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is four years in prison. Willoughby Farms faces millions of dollars in fines for three related Labor Code violations.

According to Cal/OSHA records, at 5:30 a.m. on October 15, 2020, Cruz was greasing the spinach harvesting machine with a grease gun for routine maintenance. There were no direct witnesses to the accident however the employee was last observed on the ground greasing the machine by a coworker who left the area to retrieve a water tank. When the coworker returned to the area, he found the employee on the platform, not moving, with his hoodie caught around the shaft of the machine. The coworker climbed up the ladder and pulled the cord to stop machine. Emergency services were called, and the employee pronounced dead at the scene.

Cal/OSHA issued 7 citations, 5 of which were deemed “Serious.” Records reflect the employer contested all seven. Case status remains open.

“Employers have a basic responsibility to make sure their workers are safe,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “It is a tragedy and a crime when a person doing their job is injured or killed because an employer fails to pay attention to safety.”

Willoughby Farms has been around for generations growing spinach and other crops.

This is the second time that a Santa Clara County Grand Jury has indicted an employer for a workplace death. In 2015, a jury convicted US Sino Investment owner Richard Liu and Project Manager Dan Luo of involuntary manslaughter when an unsupported 12-foot trench collapsed and crushed a worker 36 year old day laborer, Raul Zapata.

The defendants were sentenced to two years in prison. In total, US Sino Investment, was penalized $168,175 in citations. Their convictions and sentencing capped an extremely rare jury trial in such workplace deaths, which are typically settled either through administrative fines.

“This is certainly the first instance of its kind I’ve ever heard of,” said Dave Cogbill, executive director of the California Building Industry Association.