Zia Diagnostic Imaging Sues Lovelace Health System
The radiology group alleges Lovelace breached a five-year exclusive contract by recruiting its radiologists and failing to address a 2023 cyberattack.
Updated on Nov. 3, 2026 in Healthcare
Zia Diagnostic Imaging filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Lovelace Health System in Bernalillo County district court in October 2026. The suit alleges Lovelace recruited Zia's interventional radiologists and failed to mitigate effects of a November 2023 cyberattack on its parent company, Ardent Health.
Why it matters
The dispute highlights how staffing competition and IT outages can disrupt radiology services that hospitals depend on for diagnosis and patient care. Zia has since ended radiology operations, leaving Albuquerque-area providers to rely on other arrangements.
The suit describes a five-year exclusive contract signed in 2020, under which three interventional radiologists left Zia in October 2023 and four more later resigned. If Zia prevails, it plans to seek roughly $5 million to $7 million in damages, though the case remains pending.
The players
Zia Diagnostic Imaging
Albuquerque-based radiology group that held an exclusive five-year contract to provide radiology services at Lovelace and filed the breach-of-contract suit.
Lovelace Health System
Albuquerque-based hospital system that contracted Zia for radiology services and is named as the defendant in the lawsuit.
Ardent Health
Nashville-based parent company of Lovelace Health System, whose systems were disrupted by a November 2023 cyberattack.
The details
Zia says Lovelace offered jobs to its interventional radiologists in 2022, which it argues violated the exclusivity clause. The lawsuit also alleges Lovelace failed to address the November 2023 cyberattack, leaving imaging studies unavailable to Zia providers for days, weeks, and months, while Zia radiologists hand-wrote reports and faxed or walked them to clinics.
Timeline
2020: Zia signs five-year exclusive radiology contract with Lovelace.
2022: Lovelace offers jobs to Zia's interventional radiologists.
October 2023: Three interventional radiologists leave Zia for Lovelace.
November 2023: Cyberattack on Ardent Health disrupts Lovelace systems.
Spring 2024: Zia's agreement with Lovelace is terminated; October 2026: Zia files suit.
Healthcare Landscape
The dispute follows the months-long system outages that followed the November 2023 cyberattack on Ardent Health, which left imaging studies stranded for radiology groups working inside Lovelace. It shows how hospital IT failures can shift contractual responsibility onto outside clinical partners.
Patients whose imaging was delayed by the cyberattack may have experienced slower diagnoses during the months-long outages. Patients who need interventional radiology should confirm which providers and facilities currently offer those services, since Zia no longer provides radiology.
The takeaway
Contracts for essential clinical services depend on both staffing stability and IT resilience, and disputes over either can leave patients waiting. Patients should ask providers which radiology group reads their scans and how results are delivered.
Further reading
For more on hospital operations and contracts, see Healthcare coverage from across Albuquerque.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Abqjournal.
