Reply #87: Tenet and state settle lawsuit over billings for $7 million [View All]

[L. Coyote]

Tenet and state settle lawsuit over billings for $7 million
By Glenn Singer, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, February 22, 2006
http://www.tilrc.org/docs/0306tenet.htm


Tenet Healthcare Corp., which operates 15 hospitals in South Florida, will pay $7 million to the state to settle a civil lawsuit and end two investigations into its government billings for care of the needy.

The agreement with Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist resolves a suit filed in March that accused Dallas-based Tenet of inflating Medicare reimbursement claims. Thirteen public hospitals or hospital systems -- including the North Broward Hospital District and South Broward Hospital District -- joined the suit and will share in the settlement with South Florida's largest hospital operator.

The Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit will end two investigations into Tenet's Medicaid billings, one for psychiatric patients taken to Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, according to settlement documents released Tuesday.

"We are pleased by our cooperative dialogue with Attorney General Crist that has resulted in a fair and reasonable resolution," Tenet General Counsel Peter Urbanowicz said. Tenet, the second largest U.S. hospital chain after HCA Inc., still faces a proposed class-action suit by Boca Raton Community Hospital and other private acute-care medical centers.

The settlement allows Tenet to avoid a trial in U.S. District Court in Miami, where Crist had planned to seek triple damages for the state. Florida's suit claimed Tenet hospitals nationwide improperly took $1 billion from Medicare, and the $7 million represents full restitution for the state's share, said JoAnn Carrin, a spokeswoman for Crist...........................