The July 4th Knucklehead of the Day Marathon Part Five

Our fifth winner is Tenet Healthcare Corp. Last week they reached a $900 million settlement with federal officials to end investigations into alleged overbilling of Medicare.

he settlement, valued at about one-fourth of Tenet's stock-market value, will be paid over four years and ends all federal investigations by the Department of Justice and several U.S. attorneys, Tenet said.

The deal means that there will be no finding that Tenet broke the law, but President and Chief Executive Trevor Fetter said the Dallas-based company "made mistakes" before 2003, when the company came under investigation.

The settlement agreement lists Sierra Medical Center, Providence Memorial Hospital and Sierra Providence Rehabilitation Hospital in El Paso as hospitals involved in the settlement.

Sierra and Providence are on a list of Tenet hospitals which "allegedly submitted or caused to be submitted claims to Medicare that assigned diagnosis codes for inpatient discharges that were not supported by physician documentation in the patient's medical records or were otherwise improper," the settlement agreement states.

The settlement also ends an investigation by U.S. attorneys in El Paso and five other cities of financial arrangements Tenet had with doctors, Tenet said in its announcement of the settlement.

Tenet may try to spin it, but you don't pay the federal govt almost a billion dollars for not breaking the law. For defrauding American taxpayers, Tenet Healthcare Corp. is our fifth Knucklehead of the day.

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