DOJ levels allegations at owner of local hospitals

The Justice department  is alleging that Health Management Associates, which owns several area hospitals including R  The government contends that former HMA CEO Gary Newsome directed a corporate practice of pressuring emergency department physicians and hospital administrators to raise inpatient admission rates, regardless of medical necessity.  The government contends that HMA’s corporate officers, at the direction of Newsome, exerted significant pressure on doctors in the emergency department to admit patients who could have been placed in observation, treated as outpatients or discharged, and that this resulted in the submission of inflated or false claims to federal health care programs.  Justice Department officials allege that HMA paid kickbacks, either in the form of bonuses or awarded contracts, to physician groups staffing HMA emergency rooms to induce the physicians to admit patients unnecessarily.  Newsome resigned his post in July.  Last week, shareholders approved a deal valued at $7.6 billion to turn the company over to competitor Community Health Systems, the parent company of Gadsden Regional Medical Center. CHS first offered to buy HMA in late June. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the month.

iverview Regional in Gadsden and Stringfellow in Anniston, billed federal health care programs for medically unnecessary admissions and paid other medical groups for referrals to boost admissions.