Feds Reach Largest Government Fraud Settlement
W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 14 -- The Healthcare Company-HCA, the nation’slargest for-profit hospital chain, agreed today to plead guiltyto defrauding government health-care programs and will pay morethan $840 million in criminal fines, civil penalties and damages.
The agreement reached after a seven-year federal investigationtriggered by private whistleblowers is the largest government fraudsettlement ever negotiated by the Justice Department.
The company agreed to cooperate with a continuing investigationthat Attorney General Janet Reno said could still produce criminalcharges against individuals in what Deputy Assistant FBI DirectorThomas Kubic called “one of the FBI’s highest prioritywhite-collar crime investigations.”
The agreement did not settle civil allegations that HCAunlawfully charged the government for the costs of running itshospitals and that it paid kickbacks to doctors so they would referMedicare and Medicaid patients to its facilities.
The two HCA units that pleaded guilty — Columbia Homecare GroupInc. and Columbia Management Companies Inc. — agreed to pay morethan $95 million in criminal fines and were barred from furtherparticipation in federal health-care programs.
Separately, HCA agreed to pay $745 million in civil penaltiesfor its alleged false billing practices — a figure negotiated lastspring but not finalized until the criminal settlement wasannounced today.
Reno: Fraud Hurts
“Health care fraud impacts every American citizen,” Reno tolda news conference. “If you overbill the U.S. taxpayer, then we aregoing to make you pay it back and then some.”
She said it was the largest health-care fraud investigation inhistory, involving 30 U.S. attorney’s offices, 22 FBI fieldoffices, inspectors general from the Health and Human ServiceDepartment and the Office of Personnel Management, DefenseDepartment investigators and state fraud units.
HCA co-founder and chief executive Thomas Frist Jr., the brotherof U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said from the company’s Nashvilleheadquarters: “Today’s action represents one of the last stepsneeded to put the Columbia investigation behind us and allows us tomove forward, maintaining our focus on providing quality patientcare.”
