Valley Health System Facing Class Action Over ‘Deficient, Inferior’ Mammograms

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A proposed class action claims that mammograms performed between 2017 and 2019 at a Winchester, Virginia facility operated by Valley Health System were deficient and of questionable accuracy in light of federal inspectors finding that staff were “not accurately positioning or compressing women’s breasts” during the exams. 

The plaintiff, a Jefferson County, West Virginia resident, claims to have paid more than $1,600 for three mammograms in 2016, 2017 and 2019 at Winchester Medical Center, who on those dates represented itself as an accredited mammography center under the Mammography Quality Standards Act, according to the 12-page complaint. 

In July 2019, however, accreditation inspectors with the American College of Radiology, working on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration, found that the Winchester Medical Staff had improperly performed mammograms, the filing relays. Thereafter, the FDA declared that select mammograms performed at the facility had “serious image quality deficiencies,” to the extent that they posed a “serious risk to human health,” the lawsuit states. 

The plaintiff contends that the mammograms she and similarly situated patients received to screen for breast cancer and other diseases were “of different, deficient, inferior, and lesser value” compared to how they were represented by Valley Health System, and were essentially worthless. The suit stresses that the plaintiff went to Winchester Medical Center for her mammograms “based on the marketing and advertising of Valley Health into West Virginia.” 

“In fact, the mammograms were the worst kind of health care because they gave her and others the impression that that [sic] were accurate when in fact they were not dependably accurate,” the filing alleges. 

According to news reports, Winchester Medical Center’s Diagnostic Center suspended all mammography services temporarily on August 31, 2019 over concerns about the quality of thousands of breast scans performed at the facility. Earlier that month, defendant Valley Health System announced that it had accepted the corrective action plan set for the facility by the FDA, the Winchester Star reported. 

The Winchester Star wrote that Winchester Medical Center had been performing roughly 550 mammograms per week, and that the facility mailed around 25,000 certified letters advising patients how to proceed in light of the FDA’s findings. 

The lawsuit states that Valley Health System maintains and runs six hospitals, two of which are in West Virginia. 

According to the case, Valley Health System never reimbursed the plaintiff for the costs of the three mammograms. 

“By billing for the full value for mammograms that were of different, deficient, inferior, and lesser value, the Defendant unjustly extracted monetary payments from consumers,” the complaint alleges. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all consumers who, between June 20, 2017 and August 31, 2019, received mammography services from Valley Health System and were residents of West Virginia. 

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