Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns Upland, Pa.-based Crozer Health, is suing the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education after the organization withdrew accreditation for Crozer's general surgery training program, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Feb. 5.
The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas by Prospect on Jan. 31, alleges that physicians in training are leaving the general surgery residency program at Crozer-Chester Medical Center due to concerns that their efforts between January and June may not be credited toward educational prerequisites.
This comes after the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education withdrew Crozer-Chester Medical Center's surgical residency program's accreditation, stating that it needs to close by Jan. 12.
Crozer prevented the closure by filing an appeal, but should Crozer's appeal be unsuccessful in June, the ACGME asserts that the withdrawal of accreditation will be applied retroactively from Jan. 30. Accreditation losses are usually effective June 30, the end of the residency year.
The program had 15 filled resident positions, but according to the lawsuit, nine of those individuals said they were planning to leave due to the accreditation loss.
In a statement, Crozer said, "We took action to protect our trauma center and essential services in the face of an abrupt and unwarranted action by ACGME that seeks to put a cloud over our surgical residencies."
ACGME told the publication it could not comment on pending litigation.