In a recent Dallas Morning News article, they announced that surgeons, hospital owner have been convicted in a massive kickback scheme involving Forest Park Medical Center. Here are 7 key takeaways.
1. A Dallas jury found 7 of 9 defendants, including 4 physicians, guilty of accepting millions in bribes and kickbacks over multiple years involving the bankrupt Forest Park Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Of the 21 defendants named in the initial indictment, 10 pleaded guilty prior to trial and 7 were found guilty at trial.
2. Forest Park Medical Center Dallas was a physician-owned surgical hospital that operated as an out of network facility and focused on serving non-federal program patients.
3. The government has accused the physicians and others of paying and receiving over $40 million in kickbacks and bribes for patient referrals.
4. The scheme included various purported sham marketing services agreements in which money was paid by Forest Park Medical Center Dallas to entities owned or controlled by the physicians in exchange for their patient referrals.
5. The government has also accused the defendants of fraudulent behavior by inducing patients to use its out-of-network facility by waiving or substantially reducing coinsurance or patient-responsibility and concealing this from the patients’ payers.
6. The government has also implicated violations under the Travel Act for interstate commerce.
7. At trial, the government’s valuation expert testified that specific marketing services agreements were not commercially reasonable and that the fair market value of the services could not be reasonably determined.
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