Roanoke ER doc seeks $20M in landmark whistleblower lawsuit

A Roanoke Valley emergency room doctor’s $20 million lawsuit goes to jury trial this week, with Dr. Thomas Bolton alleging that he was fired for complaining that HCA Healthcare‘s emphasis on shorter ER wait times at LewisGale Medical Center and its Cave Spring ER had a negative impact on patient safety.

The case is believed to be the first to be brought to trial under the Virginia Whistleblower Protection Law, which passed the General Assembly in 2020.

Bolton is seeking $20 million in damages in his lawsuit against his former employer, Lake Spring Emergency Group, a Glen Allen staffing and management services company that provides physician staffing for LewisGale Medical Center in Salem and the freestanding LewisGale Cave Spring ER in Roanoke County.

In Bolton’s original complaint, filed in 2023, Lewis-Gale Medical Center, Lewis-Gale Hospital and HCA Management Services were also listed as defendants, but in a January 2024 order, Roanoke County Circuit Court Judge James R. Swanson dismissed parties other than Lake Spring Emergency Group from the lawsuit. One of the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chains, Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare owns and operates about 2,400 health care sites, including the LewisGale facilities in the Roanoke area.

Bolton is represented by a Roanoke County law firm, Virginia Employment Law. One of his lawyers, Thomas E. Strelka, stated in a December 2024 email to Virginia Business that the case will be the first trial under the Virginia Whistleblower Protection Act, which broadened the protection of employees  speaking out against wrongdoing or abuse by their employers.

Bolton’s attorneys and attorneys representing Lake Spring Emergency Group, as well as an HCA spokesperson, did not immediately respond to interview requests for this story.

Emergency room doctors at the two LewisGale facilities, according to Bolton’s 2023 complaint, receive alerts when management feels ER wait times are too long. Both facilities also have large digital signs that display the average length of time patients can anticipate waiting before being seen by medical staff.

Bolton, who was hired by Lake Spring in 2018 to work at the LewisGale facilities in Salem and Cave Spring, repeatedly complained to management about ER doctors receiving alerts when HCA determined wait times were too long. He also reported other concerns to management, including that patients who needed to be admitted to the hospital were being left in the emergency room and that there were slow responses for transporting critically ill patients in need of “emergent surgical intervention,” as well as inadequate numbers of medical staff.

Lake Spring Emergency Group denies the allegations in court documents.

In 2021, Bolton alleged in his lawsuit, management placed him on a performance improvement plan related to his complaints about wait time alerts, an action Bolton considered retaliatory. However, Lake Spring stated in court documents that the performance plan was implemented due to “among other things, clinical efficiency, timely communication and punctuality.”

In January 2023, Bolton complained to management that an 800-pound man had been at LewisGale Medical Center’s emergency room for 45 hours without any lab work being ordered. Bolton called an administrator at night to stress that the patient needed to be admitted to the hospital.

A month later, Bolton learned his physician agreement was terminated and he would not be scheduled to work at either LewisGale facility beyond May 2, 2023.

“The decision to terminate Bolton was made by defendants in retaliation for his whistleblowing activity of the negative effect of defendants’ management decisions on patient care,” the complaint stated.

However, his former employer, Lake Spring stated in court documents that its actions regarding Bolton’s employment “were based on legitimate business needs and were taken without regard to Dr. Bolton’s rights, entitlements, actions or inactions under law.”

A claim for retaliation under the state Whistleblower Protection Law does not hold up, Lake Spring said in court filings, because Bolton “did not engage in any conduct protected by the statute and did not suffer a retaliatory action that was casually connected to such protected conduct.”