Restraining order on doctors’ records OK’d

The two doctors asked Superior Court Judge Christine M. Roach for a temporary restraining order on Thursday, to stop Caritas Christi from taking 3,000 to 4,000 records from their Watertown office at 8 a.m. yesterday. In their motion, Dr. Paul M. Fergus and Dr. David J. Cancian said what should have been a “smooth transition’’ from Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center to Mount Auburn has turned into “a grudge match.’’

The judge partially granted the doctors’ request, saying the two sides must agree, at least for now, upon a neutral location for the records to which they each have “reasonable access,’’ according to a transcript provided by the doctors’ lawyer, Katherine Young Fergus. The judge also told Caritas to provide patients with a forwarding telephone number for the two doctors.

Young Fergus said yesterday that an agreement had not been reached, so when a medical records management company hired by Caritas showed up to take the records yesterday morning, office staff turned them away. Caritas spokeswoman Teresa Prego said staff threatened to call the police.

Later in the afternoon, however, the staff and physicians agreed to allow Caritas to move the records into storage, Prego said.

The disagreement highlights the intense competition among hospitals in the Boston area to hire and retain established physicians, especially primary care physicians. They can help hospitals attract more patients, boost revenue, and draw medical specialists at a time when the health care industry is bracing for sweeping change in how providers are paid.

For Caritas, having such doctors on staff is especially crucial.

The six-hospital chain has been working to strengthen its finances after losing money last year and struggling to make needed capital improvements. Dr. Paul Fergus, reached at his office yesterday, said he did not want to discuss why he and Cancian are leaving Caritas as of Monday. A third physician in their office, Dr. Paul F. Kasuba, is remaining with Caritas but will move to another location.

But the motion filed in court said that in late 2008 Caritas told the doctors they would not get a raise for the coming year and that a certain portion of their income would no longer be guaranteed. Fergus said in an interview that he was impressed with recent renovations at Mount Auburn, by the camaraderie among the staff, and by the hospital’s affiliation with Harvard Medical School.

Earlier this year, Mount Auburn’s continued wooing of the doctors led a senior vice president for Caritas to leave an ominous-sounding voicemail for James Blakeley, the recruiter at Mount Auburn.

“You have fired the first shot,’’ Dr. Timothy J. Crowley said in the voicemail. “And trust me, you don’t want to go to war with me. I’ll take everything you got and everything you love and kill it.’’

In an interview with the Globe, Crowley said the voicemail was intended as a “light-hearted’’ joke between two longtime friends with a history of sharp repartee; Crowley and Blakeley once worked together. But a Mount Auburn executive complained to Caritas, and that led to Crowley’s departure from the hospital chain on May 29.

Liz Kowalczyk can be reached at kowalczyk@globe.com.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story about the legal battle between two doctors and Caritas Christi Health Care that ran in the Metro section Oct. 31 should have said the six-hospital chain lost money in fiscal 2008. It posted an operating gain of $30.7 million for fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30.