Written by Ayla Ellison – February 06, 2017
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare agreed to pay approximately $514 million last October to resolve allegations the company paid kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals. Although Tenet settled the lawsuit, the federal government attached a name to the case last week when a former Tenet executive was charged for his alleged involvement in the scheme.
In an indictment filed Jan. 24, John Holland, who previously served as senior vice president of operations for Tenet’s Southern States Region and as CEO of North Fulton Medical Center in Roswell, Ga., is charged with one count of healthcare fraud and two counts of major fraud against the United States.
According to the Department of Justice, Mr. Holland and his co-conspirators circumvented Tenet’s internal accounting controls to pay illegal kickbacks and bribes to a clinic that referred undocumented pregnant patients to Tenet hospitals for Medicaid-covered deliveries. Federal prosecutors allege the illegal scheme helped Tenet bill the Georgia and South Carolina Medicaid programs for more than $400 million.
