Why is this company still in business?

[Liberal Veteran]

Sacramento -- Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that Tenet Healthcare Corp. will pay $54 million to settle allegations that it performed unnecessary heart surgeries at a Redding facility to reap government health care money.

The settlement ends both civil and criminal investigations into the three corporate entities involved in the matter, Tenet Healthcare Corp., Tenet HealthSystems Hospitals Inc. and the Redding Medical Center. Tenet is the nation's second-largest hospital chain, with 40 hospitals in California.

---snip-----

It began with an FBI investigation last fall into allegations that as many as half of the heart procedures performed by two of its star cardiologists at the Redding facility, Chae Hyun Moon and Fidel Realyvasquez Jr., were medically unnecessary.

---snip---
Federal authorities refused to discuss whether there was any evidence that the corporate entities were aware of, or condoned, unnecessary cardiac procedures at the hospital, citing continuing investigations.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/07/BU161562.DTL&type=business


My thoughts on this: Simmering outrage. Performing unnecessary HEART SURGERY to pump up profits or to practice or who the heck knows why is criminal. There should be people in jail for a very long time over this. Fines and settlements just don't cut it in my estimation.

Am I missing something about this?

[Egnever]

1. This i think goes to one of the biggest problems

We have in this country. For some reason major corporations are not allowed to fail. No matter what they do.

Rj reynolds for example is being protected from lawsuits... why? So what if they fail tey deserve to. Someone will supply cigarettes if they do I guarentee it!

Failing or fraudulent buisinesses need to go under they are failures. Isnt that what capitalism is suposed to be about?

[Liberal Veteran]

2. That's how I saw it too...

Protecting the business over the citizens that have been harmed by this. It unscores everything that is wrong in society. The fact that this case ends the criminal investigation is the clincher for me.

I mean c'mon! These people unneccessarily cut people open and perform heart surgery on them when they didn't need it. That's not only malpractice, it's assault, it's fraud, it's maiming and it's damned evil.

This case is just outrageous.

[theboss]

3. Slow down

I work in health care and you have to realize that "medically unncessary" means an entirely different thing in insurance parlance. The article does not go into detail so I need to research this, but "medically unnecessary" typically means that the payer believes that a lesser level of care would have been sufficient. It doesn't mean that these patients were healthy and the surgeons cut them open just for money. They likely did have conditions and heart surgery was one of many options. The hospital probably steered them towards surgery since this was the most profitable.

Tenet has had myriad problems this year, mostly in its billing practices. The reason you don't let one of the five or six largest hosptial chains in the country fail is because you would leave millions of people without access to health care. Most major hospitals are part of chains now. Most medium-sized cities have one hospital or at most two (and they are likely in the same chain). If Tenet goes belly-up, people in the West are screwed.

[theboss]

4. By the way. . . .

I'm not dismissing what Tenet did. They are an unbelievably sleazy company from what I can tell. And heart surgery is not something to screw around with. I am curious to see how the state medical boards treat the surgeons. That should be the indicator of how bad the behavior really was.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. All the more reason they should be shut down....

We should not allow sleazy and fraudulent businesses countinue to stay in business. The government should just seize the assets of this company and use them to transfer the existing patients to a reputable healthcare provider.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. I don't think your assessment is accurate.....

In a different article.....

Federal and state authorities have been investigating whether the two doctors performed unnecessary procedures to boost earnings. FBI agents raided their offices in October.

Dr. Chae Hyun Moon, who was director of cardiology at the hospital, and Dr. Fidel Realyvasquez Jr., who was chief of cardiac surgery, suspended their practices in February.

FBI agents said the two doctors were being investigated on suspicion of health care fraud, making false statements and conspiracy to commit fraud. They allegedly performed catheterizations, angioplasties and open-heart surgeries that weren't necessary.

The probe began after a patient complained of being misdiagnosed for triple-bypass surgery. Doctors and other medical offices raised questions about the alarming number of heart surgeries performed at Redding Medical Center.

http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/f/1310/8-6-2003/20030806181503_06.html

[theboss]

6. Well, that's different

I hadn't see that.

If that's the case, the cases are bordering on assault. I am curious to know the medical histories of the patients though.

[Mairead]

8. "If Tenet goes belly-up, people in the West are screwed."

Perhaps you --everyone-- should look at it in a different way. 'Tenet goes belly-up' could be made to mean 'Tenet's assets are forfeited and given to some other group to manage, with no interruption of service'.

Current law is sick. As others here have pointed out, there is essentially no way to effectively punish the owners and managers of a corporation. The corporate puppet has most or all of the legal rights of a human, but none of the obligations or vulnerabilities. That's beyond being merely outrageous, that's destructive of us. So we should stop holding still for it.

[Chef]

9. Tenet

If you cought the replay piece on 60 Minutes three weeks ago you would see that the reason this came to light was that a local priest filed a lawsuit after he was told he needed bypass surgery immediately or he would die. He got several second opinions and found there was nothing wrong with his heart and the hospital would take no action. Several other victims also reported the same experience. No heart problems.

[Mel]

10. Why is this company still in business?

Crony Capitalism, that's why this company is still in business.