Tenet Healthcare Will Pay a $30 Million Whistleblower Settlement Over Alleged Kickbacks at Detroit Medical Center

Tenet Healthcare has agreed to a $29.7 million civil settlement over whistleblower claims of physician kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals at its Detroit Medical Center subsidiary, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.

The government alleged that the False Claims Act violations occurred between 2014 and 2017 and involved two DMC hospitals—Sinai Grace Hospital and Harper University Hospital—providing the services of mid-level, employed practitioners to 13 physicians “at no cost or below fair market value in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute,” DOJ wrote in a press release.

These physicians were allegedly selected due to the large number of patients they referred to the hospitals and for the purpose of increasing Medicare referrals to DMC’s facilities, DOJ said.

Read the source article at fiercehealthcare.com