Business
Retrial scheduled in Tenet case
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 14, 2005
Tenet Healthcare Corp. is likely headed back to court as prosecutors try for a second time to prove that one of the company's California hospitals paid illegal kickbacks to physicians to boost patient referrals.
U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz tentatively scheduled a retrial of the kickback case involving Alvarado Hospital Medical Center to begin March 29 in federal court in San Diego.
A mistrial was declared in the original case on Feb. 17 after jurors were unable to reach a verdict following nearly four months of testimony.
In a prepared statement, E. Peter Urbanowicz, Tenet's general counsel, said retrying the case would be expensive and a waste of time.
Prosecutors have alleged that Alvarado and another Tenet subsidiary paid more than $10 million to fund physician relocation agreements between 1992 and 2002, They claimed a "substantial portion" of the money went to established doctors to induce them to make referrals to Alvarado.
Tenet has denied wrongdoing.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/03/14/bibf0314.htm.
