This week, the U.S. Justice Department joined eight whistleblowers suing a Naples-based hospital chain accused of billing for unnecessary patient admissions and paying kickbacks to doctors who referred patients to its hospitals.
A slew of False Claims Act lawsuits against Health Management Associates (HMA) now have some backing from the federal government.
Dan Anderson with the U.S. Justice Department said his agency is intervening in lawsuits claiming the hospital chain broke federal anti-kickback laws.
“Congress passed these anti-kickback provisions in part in recognition that by paying illegal remunerations to physicians, for example, to admit patients to a hospital, you are driving up costs,” he said. “Patients are being admitted who perhaps should not be admitted. And perhaps they are getting services that they don’t need.”
According to a press release from the DOJ, the government has also joined in the allegations that former HMA CEO Gary Newsome directed a corporate policy of “pressuring emergency department physicians and hospital administrators to raise inpatient admission rates, regardless of medical necessity.”
HMA had disclosed these whistleblower lawsuits back in December. All eight are now unsealed.
In a statement HMA officials said, “while our legal team addresses these matters and continues to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s investigation, HMA associates and physicians who practice at our facilities are focused on providing the highest quality patient care in all of our facilities.”
HMA currently operates 23 hospitals in Florida—six in Southwest Florida.
