By Gregg Blesch December 06, 2010 See? We mean it. Tony West, assistant attorney general over the U.S. Justice Department's civil division, delivered that message last month when he announced the government's biggest-ever take from healthcare False Claims Act cases: $2.5 billion. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch November 22, 2010 St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., officially moved beyond a federal probe of its dealings with a group of cardiovascular surgeons. But the $22 million settlement doesn't settle the underlying mess, which has sown a thicket of litigation. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch October 25, 2010 As the federal government pushes healthcare providers to deliver seamless care with better outcomes at lower costs, agencies say they are thinking hard about how to knock down a big potential barrier: themselves. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea October 14, 2010 Devicemaker Medtronic, Minneapolis, will pay $268 million to settle lawsuits relating to defects in its Sprint Fidelis defibrillation leads, according to a news release. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson October 11, 2010 As regulators implement a laundry list of new enforcement techniques in the healthcare reform law, their goal is not only to discourage individual crimes but also to alter the value proposition for would-be healthcare fraudsters. ... FULL STORY
By Andis Robeznieks September 13, 2010 Fear cannot be capped apparently. Specifically, physicians' fear of being sued is costing the healthcare system more than $45 billion each year, and state-level tort reforms seem to have little impact on reducing the practice of defensive medicine. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson September 09, 2010 In a legal victory for the White House, a federal appeals court in Washington temporarily blocked a lower-court ruling that would have halted federal funding of stem-cell research. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch August 23, 2010 A recent Nevada Supreme Court opinion clarifies whether the state's hospitals can expect to be held liable for care in their emergency rooms provided by physicians who are independent contractors. The clear answer is: It depends, which is generally the standard elsewhere. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch August 09, 2010 A chain of urology and prostate centers based in the Chicago area agreed to pay $7.3 million to resolve allegations by HHS' inspector general's office that the company and some of its physician investors leveraged referrals to win contracts with unnamed hospitals in the Midwest. ... FULL STORY
By Meghan Streit July 26, 2010 Every Friday evening, Tom Girton, administrator of the Pediatric Center in Glen Allen, Va., e-mails a report of the week's financial activity to each physician in the group. He doesn't ask doctors to sign checks when they are seeing patients, and he periodically provides a list of total... ... FULL STORY
April 12, 2010 St. Joseph Medical Center has sent letters to an additional 169 former patients notifying them that they might have undergone unnecessary stenting, according to a written statement issued by the Towson, Md., hospital. ... FULL STORY
January 25, 2010 The consequences for physician group practices and other healthcare organizations that fail to protect the privacy and security of patient records continue to escalate. ... FULL STORY
December 14, 2009 Scott & White Healthcare, the physician led and managed system based in Temple, Texas, is going ahead with plans to make a children’s hospital out of a struggling facility acquired earlier this year, saying the system fulfilled an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to shop the... ... FULL STORY
November 23, 2009 Scott & White Healthcare, the physician-led and-managed system based in Temple, Texas, took ownership of the only other hospital in its home town earlier this year, planning to turn it into a children's hospital. It appears the Federal Trade Commission has different plans for it. ... FULL STORY
September 28, 2009 The Montana Supreme Court will decide whether the state constitution protects physicians from prosecution if they prescribe lethal medication to terminal patients who ask for it. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch September 14, 2009 How much is it appropriate for a hospital to pay a physician? Without explaining how the line was drawn, the Justice Department says it was crossed in Waterloo, Iowa, when Covenant Medical Center paid a handful of employed specialists sums as high as $1.8 million apiece. ... FULL STORY
