
In a striking move to uphold healthcare regulation, the Office of Health Care Assurance of the Hawai'i Department of Health has handed down a hefty $2,190,000 in penalties to two Hawai’i Island urgent care centers. The Hilo Urgent Care Center, LLC and its Kea'au branch were caught red-handed operating clinical laboratories without the necessary permits, breaking both state and federal laws in the process, as reported by the official Hawai'i Department of Health's newsroom.
An inspector from the Hawai'i Department of Health confirmed on March 25, that these facilities have been running labs illegally for years—it seems they never bothered to obtain a state clinical laboratory permit or a federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment certificate. Specifically, Hilo Urgent Care has been operating without the state permit since June 2003, while Kea’au has been doing so since July 2008. To quickly sum it up, that’s a long time to just overlook a pretty significant aspect of lawful medical operation.
The individual penalties assessed reflect the gravity of each center's violations. The Hilo Urgent Care Center is facing a $730,000 fine, while the Kea’au center's lack of state and federal certification has earned them a substantially heftier $1,460,000 penalty, as stated by the Hawai'i Department of Health.
The Hawai‘i Department of Health’s Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment section is responsible for licensing and regulating clinical labs in the state. This isn’t just red tape—it helps make sure lab tests are reliable and safe. Given the recent news, other healthcare centers would be smart to carefully review their procedures to avoid similar issues.