The doctor is in: Dr. Ruben Patel, former head of Ochsner Baton Rouge’s urgent care department, is launching a new health care business with local entrepreneur Vishal Vasanji. Point of Care Health Group will “serve as an umbrella entity over a variety of service providers focused on serving local communities and patients with a high level of personal, individualized care in affordable, convenient settings,” reads the news release. Patel says the company’s ventures will include urgent care clinics, telemedicine, work site solutions and mobile clinics, with the first to open later this year. “The implementation of the Affordable Care Act, a looming shortage of primary care providers and an aging population is driving the need for more health care options in Baton Rouge,” Patel says.
In the courtroom: The operator of the LSU hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe, trying to maintain its hold on the facilities, asked a judge Wednesday to throw out a university lawsuit accusing it of breach of contract. As The Associated Press reports, a two-day court hearing is underway in Baton Rouge over a request from the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana to have LSU’s lawsuit dismissed. LSU sued the research foundation, known as BRF, in September, claiming the foundation was in breach of its hospital management contract and failed to promote the hospitals’ academic mission. The foundation responded that LSU’s lawsuit was improperly filed and doesn’t establish the basic facts needed to show breach of contract. Read the full story.
Bookends: Two popular bookstores in Uptown New Orleans and an alternative magazine joined Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging a brand-new Louisiana criminal statute that requires website owners to install age-verification buttons to stop minors from viewing inappropriate sexual material. The Associated Press reports the legal challenge was filed in federal court in Baton Rouge. The plaintiffs include the Garden District Book Shop, Octavia Books and Future Crawfish Paper in Gretna, publisher of the Antigravity Magazine. The suit alleges a law passed in June aimed at stopping the flow of online pornography goes too far, requiring the plaintiffs to “age-verify every Internet user” in a way that ends up having the effect of a “widespread chill on digital speech.” Read the full story.
