Radiologist reaches settlement with hospital system he claimed fired him for requesting remote work
An immunocompromised radiologist has reached a settlement with a New York hospital system he had claimed fired him for requesting to work from home.
The case dates back to March 2020, when the COVID-19 crisis was declared a national emergency. Richard Heiden, MD, was with NYC Health and Hospitals for less than a year at the time and asked to be reassigned to remote work. That’s because he suffers from the autoimmune disease ulcerative colitis, which made him vulnerable to the virus, Radiology Business reported previously.
However, leaders at the Bronx-based Lincoln Hospital, instead, allegedly issued a negative performance review the next day, and a few days later urged him to quit or be fired. He obliged April 2, tendering his resignation. Heiden, a 30-year veteran of the profession, subsequently filed suit in December 2020, seeking unspecified damages from the nation’s largest municipal healthcare system, its radiology department chair, and Physicians Affiliate Group of New York, which staffs the hospital.
The dispute came to an end May 31, with U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman signing off on a settlement between the sides and dismissing the case. Liman previously gave NYC Hospitals et al. a victory in January, granting partial summary judgment on claims related to the New York State Human Rights Law and ADA, Law360 reported.
The court believed NYC Hospitals presented enough information to back its claims that Heiden was terminated for legitimate reasons (inaccurate diagnoses). But the judge wanted further information related to Heiden’s claim that the health system failed to accommodate his condition, and that it violated the human rights law. Liman had asked a jury to consider this aspect of the case, but the parties instead entered negotiations in April leading up to the undisclosed settlement.
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Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.