The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened in a whistle-blower suit that accuses Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare and Health Management Associates, based in Naples, Fla., of providing kickbacks to obstetrics clinics that referred undocumented Hispanic women to several of the health systems' hospitals for labor and delivery.
The suit, originally filed by Ralph Williams, the former CFO of HMA, alleges the health systems paid the clinic for referring the undocumented women to four Tenet and one HMA hospitals, as the women would become eligible for Medicaid after delivery. Such a relationship is in violation of the federal Medicare and Medicaid Anti-Kickback Statute, according to the suit.
"The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that healthcare providers who pay kickbacks in return for patient referrals are held accountable," said Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Division Stuart F. Delery in a news release. "Schemes such as this one corrupt the healthcare system and take advantage of vulnerable patients."
In a statement, Tenet said the agreements between the clinics and hospitals "were appropriate and provided substantial benefit to women in underserved Hispanic communities served by those hospitals," and the health system would "vigorously defend" itself against the allegations.
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