Three doctors terminated from Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, a part of Hackensack Meridian Health, are suing their former employer, claiming they were fired because of age discrimination.
The emergency pediatric physicians — Usha Avva, MD, Nina Gold, MD, and Kathleen Reichard, MD — were 56, 55, and 53, respectively, at the time. Their lawyers say they were well-respected veteran doctors who treated COVID-19 patients on the front lines, and that the reasons their employers gave for their termination were illegitimate.
“They terminated the three oldest in the whole division,” Michael O’Connor, one of the attorneys representing the doctors, told MedPage Today. “And they retained five recent hires, including two who’d only been there for 5 months, who are 34 and 35 years old.” The average age of the five newer hires was 36 years — 19 years younger than that of the fired physicians, he said.
According to the complaint, filed with the Superior Court of New Jersey by McMoran, O’Connor, Bramley & Burns, PC, the physicians were also the only three full-time doctors who were board-certified in pediatric emergency medicine. They were told the reason for their termination was “business” or “operational” needs because of a decrease in patient volume related to COVID-19. Studies have shown a reduction in pediatric admissions in 2020 for a number of reasons, including children participating in fewer activities outside the home and reluctance of parents to visit the hospital during the pandemic.
But, the complaint points out, patient volumes were already increasing at the time of the firings in February 2021, and the hospital had hired two new, younger physicians at the height of the pandemic, when the decrease in patients that the hospital said necessitated the terminations would have been most pronounced.
“They were taken completely by surprise, terminated without warning, and then escorted out of the hospital by security guards, without a chance to say goodbye to people that they worked with for all of those years,” said O’Connor.
According to the complaint, division leadership created a spreadsheet ranking all the emergency pediatric doctors by certain performance measures, which the complaint called “a termination tool designed to support an ageist decision that the defendants had already made.”
What was most notable about the spreadsheet (which is not publicly available), the attorneys said, was what was left out. The measurement tool didn’t include experience, pay, and board certification. Two of the fired physicians had over 15 years of experience at the hospital (Avva had 20), and the pay difference between them and the new hires, the attorneys said, was less than 10% — meaning that the cost of paying some of the most senior physicians was likely not a factor in their firing.
“When you eliminate all the other reasons, such as experience, seniority, board certification, when you eliminate all of those … what’s left?” said Bruce P. McMoran, the physicians’ other attorney, who noted that there were no complaints against any of the doctors. The new hires, the complaint alleges, were not as qualified as the three fired physicians.
The lawsuit argues that on the spreadsheets, “the criteria selected, the weight afforded to each criterion and the scoring were arbitrary, subjective and designed to support a predetermined result based on age.” For example, though clinical duties make up most of their responsibilities, it was weighed equally as other criteria. Patient outcomes and satisfaction were not given enough weight, the lawsuit says.
The three physicians were given low scores in a number of categories, including “discipline and professionalism,” which O’Connor called, “the most insulting thing, because our three doctors led the charge during COVID-19 to get into the hospital and treat adult and pediatric patients.”
Another category included non-clinical activities, like teaching responsibilities, roles on committees, and research. The three doctors, according to the complaint, had held numerous roles on committees, done research outside of work, and held teaching positions. For example, Avva had served as the interim division chief for 2 years, was a faculty member in the pediatric residency program, and was an assistant professor at the medical school.
Gold had run the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Resident Education Program, was an assistant professor, and had worked on numerous research projects. Instead, the complaint notes that one of the newer hires was given a higher score for “potential” in this category, which the lawsuit calls “a well-known euphemism for age.”
Avva had received a zero in the “professionalism/citizenship/discipline” category because of a parent complaint in 2018 that the lawsuit calls “unfounded,” for which she had been required to take a sensitivity class. Reichard was also marked down for a complaint filed against her after she reported being bullied and hazed upon being hired.
Speed with patients was also taken into account, which the complaint says is not a good measure of performance. All three doctors had had their contracts renewed for 3 years in August 2020, and all three had received $20,000 performance bonuses in 2020. The performance reviews, according to the complaint, had been positive.
Hackensack Meridian Health wrote in an email to MedPage Today that it is their policy not to comment on pending litigation. None of the three plaintiffs nor the five defendants named in the lawsuit responded to requests for comment.