Legal & Regulatory Issues

A Chicago podiatrist who was convicted last summer of accepting monthly kickbacks from now-shuttered Sacred Heart Hospital in Chicago in exchange for referrals has been sentenced to three months in prison, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Erlanger Health System loaned $20 million to Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., to keep the hospital open. Now, Erlanger is suing to get the money back.

The following hospitals, health systems and healthcare companies entered into settlement agreements to resolve alleged violations of the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute since November.

Evanston, Ill.-based NorthShore University HealthSystem CEO Mark Neaman has accused the Federal Trade Commission of gerrymandering, claiming the agency is only analyzing a small portion of the Chicago area's healthcare market to challenge NorthShore's merger with Downer's Grove, Ill.-based Advocate…

While CMS plans and prepares the rulemaking for the NOTICE Act, the American Hospital Association has voiced its opinions on the law and how it should be implemented.

Farid Fata, MD, a Detroit-area hematologist-oncologist, was sentenced in July to 45 years in prison for administering unnecessary chemotherapy to healthy patients to enable him to fraudulently bill Medicare and private payers for the treatment. However, new allegations have come…

Singing River Health System has agreed to pay $156 million to settle multiple lawsuits alleging the Pascagoula, Miss.-based health system failed to make annual required contributions into a retirement fund, according to a gulflive.com report.

Authorities are investigating an incident that occurred Jan. 4 at Kindred Hospital South Florida-Coral Gables (Fla.) in which an elderly man shot a woman and then killed himself, according to a Miami Herald report.

Hovik Simitian, the former owner and operator of three medical clinics in Los Angeles, has been sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for his involvement in a massive kickback scheme, according to the Department of Justice.

Barbara Ann Currin and six others have been charged with Medicaid fraud in Minnesota, according to KARE11.com.