Healthcare Companies

Los Angeles city attorneys have filed another group of patient dumping cases as part of an ongoing investigation. This time, the office has targeted Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Feliz and Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, along with transportation service Empire …

The University of Connecticut Health Center will pay more than $475,000 to settle Medicare over-billing charges. The hospital was accused of overcharging Medicare for cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and infusion therapy, from 2002 to 2004. The feds had charged that instead of billing Medicare on a per-patient basis, the Center's John Dempsey Hospital charged Medicare for the hours it spent in patient care, resulting in bills that were two- to seven-times larger than allowed. The …

The California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has issued a cease and desist order against UnitedHealthcare division PacifiCare of California, contending the health plan engaged in "dishonest and unfair" business practices. While the scale of the case is relatively small--it involves about 500 patients enrolled with a medical group in Redwood City--the matter is significant. It's only the second time in the DMHC's six-year history that it has issued such an order. What's …

When Tufts-New England Medical Center merged with Rhode Island hospital group Lifespan in 1997, both partners hailed the deal as a huge win. The venerable Tufts-New England Medical Center (NEMC), which has been open since the 1796, had prestige but too much debt and too little competitive leverage. At the time, execs believed that Lifespan could give NEMC the competitive edge it needed. But sadly, some marriages are doomed to end in divorce. Today, Lifespan and NEMC are locked in a …

Providers in Houston are going mano a mano over claims that a dominant health system drove a physician-owned hospital out of business. Attorneys for the now-closed Houston Town & Country Hospital say that Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, which includes 16 hospitals across the Houston metro, asked insurers to boycott the startup facility. Houston Town & Country closed in 2006, having been open less than 18 months. Some of the physicians who took part in the Town & Country …

With its high-profile legal troubles in the past, Tenet Healthcare executives say that they're turning operations around, with a range of initiatives including physician sales and service programs, improvements efforts targeting under-performing facilities and a "targeted growth" program designed to restructure services within individual hospitals. Execs are also restructuring …

A group of Tuscaloosa, AL-based physicians are suing HealthSouth to stop the pending sale of one of its outpatient surgery centers. The physician group, Surgery Center Partners, contends that when it agreed to sell its outpatient surgical facilities, HealthSouth didn't honor the terms of the partnership contract with their regional surgery center, HealthSouth Surgical Center of Tuscaloosa. HealthSouth has agreed to sell its 139 surgery centers and three surgical hospitals to Texas Pacific …

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) has seen another top administrator leave in the wake of ongoing questions over alleged financial fraud. A week before he was due to retire, associate dean for academic and student affairs Paul Mehne has been relieved of his duties and placed on paid administrative leave amidst yet another investigation into the school's purported financial misdealings. Early last year, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine dismissed the school's …

It may be starting as a small division, but it could become something big quickly. Hoping to get its piece of the agency's massive budget, Humana has created a unit which will help the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs care for veterans who are eligible for its benefits. Humana already gets roughly three quarters of its premium revenue from government sources, largely from CMS. Now it wants more government income. To jump start the new division, Humana Veterans Healthcare Services, it …

Sharp HealthCare, a seven-hospital chain based in San Diego, is facing charges that it has violated state regulations hundreds of times. The system's nurses have filed a 140-page quality-of-care complaint with the California Department of Health Services which lists 900 alleged transgressions "seriously compromising" patient care, according to United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. The nurses say the hospitals face unsanitary conditions, short …