Modernhealthcare.com

RECRUITMENT PREDICAMENT: Tenet settles with feds for $21 million in kickback case, but hospitals still wait for clear guidance on what's allowed

May 22, 2006

By Mark Taylor and Vince Galloro

...Thomas McNamara, the lawyer who represented Weinbaum, said the former CEO was elated by the dismissal of charges against him. McNamara said he expected the government to attempt to exclude Weinbaum, now vice president of special projects for Tenet in California, from participating in federal healthcare programs or punish him in some other fashion. "Egos are at stake," he said.

McNamara said Alvarado was the first case to apply federal anti-kickback law to physician-relocation agreements. "I hope after this the Justice Department will relax and let hospitals proceed with physician recruiting legally under prescribed terms," he said. "Many hospitals have frozen physician recruiting, waiting for a resolution. There's still a lot of murkiness here. But I sense, after this, there won't be other criminal cases."...