The Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic where Joan Rivers suffered complications during a procedure is dealing with another strike against it today, Jan. 12. New York State's Department of Health and Human Services originally launched an investigation against the clinic shortly after Rivers's death in September and found a number of things wrong. The clinic was originally cited for leaving patient records in clear view and for a staff member taking cellphone photos of the comedienne while she was under sedation. Now we are learning that it has lost federal funding because it has yet to clean up its act.
Yorkville was also originally found non-compliant in providing proper follow-up care for patients who had been under anesthesia, and it was given time to correct its errors. As it turns out, Yorkville has not met the deadline to clean up its business practices and, because of that, it will officially lose federal funding beginning Jan. 31. As of that date, the clinic can no longer accept Medicare as a form of payment, so any of their current patients who are covered under Medicare need to start shopping for new doctors now.
Last week, we learned that Yorkville's former medical director, Dr. Lawrence Cohen, once wrote a paper regarding his belief that having an anesthesiologist on staff for endoscopic procedures is not "cost effective" and basically is unnecessary. Even with the extra hands and eyes on staff, Cohen still could not get Rivers safely through what was considered a routine procedure.
The regulatory issues at Yorkville may ultimately be a sign of an even bigger problem within Frontier Healthcare, the company which manages their operations. As it turns out, three Frontier facilities have had regulatory problems similar to what Yorkville is experiencing.
It has become obvious that this facility had many issues long before Rivers walked in the door — it just took her unfortunate death for anyone else to realize it.
