You can’t blame a guy for trying.
When Oklahoma Blue Cross-Blue Shield terminated Dr. Gude’s provider agreement, he decided to fight back. He sued the Blues in federal court, alleging they had violated—and this is the imaginative part—Oklahoma’s Consumer Protection Act. As he saw it, he was a consumer, and the Blues had treated him unfairly. So he should have a consumer protection claim.
The court didn’t see it that way. As the court saw it, Dr. Gude wasn’t a consumer at all. He didn’t consume anything. He didn’t buy any goods or any services from the Blues. The only consumers in the picture were the patients, and they weren’t complaining.
So the court threw out Dr. Gude’s consumer protection count. It did the same with his defamation count. His theory there was that the Blues had defamed him by saying the termination was based on his overutilization of diagnostic tests. But the court noted that there was no evidence—not even an allegation—that the overutilization charge was false or had been communicated to anyone other than the doctor himself.
So all that’s left of the suit is the breach of contract claim.
The case is Access Endocrine v. Health Care Services, No. 5:14-cv-441 (W.D.Okla. 2014).
