New Tenet probe involves NLV hospital

Friday, April 18, 2003 | 11:36 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the hospital company facing a Medicare audit and other investigations, received a U.S. government subpoena Thursday for information about agreements made with a group of cancer doctors in Southern Nevada and California.

The Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General is asking for documents related to Tenet's relationship with the Women's Cancer Center, the company said in a statement. The doctors' group was affiliated with four Tenet hospitals in California and its Lake Mead Hospital Medical Center in North Las Vegas, the company said.

Mike Seeley, a spokesman for Los Gatos, Calif.-based Women's Cancer Center, which with 26 doctors has the largest group of physicians treating gynecological cancers in California, said the company opened offices in Southern Nevada in 1998.

The company's offices in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas have a total of five doctors and they have privilege agreements with Lake Mead Hospital Medical Center and HCA's Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

The United States is auditing payments Medicare made for the most expensive patients treated at Tenet hospitals. A separate government lawsuit accuses Tenet of charging too much to treat conditions such as pneumonia. The Cancer Center request represents a new inquiry, and isn't related to previously disclosed investigations, said Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini.

"I don't want to minimize the issue, but I also want to make it clear that this is absolutely not related to quality-of-care issues at any of the hospitals, including Lake Mead," Campanini said.

"Civil subpoenas for information from the OIG are not uncommon in the highly regulated health care industry and we will cooperate fully so that the agency may complete its inquiry in a timely fashion," said Christi Sulzbach, Tenet's chief corporate officer and general counsel, in a statement released by the company Thursday.

Ben St. John, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, said today the office could not disclose the specific issues under study because the office has a policy of not commenting on investigations in progress and the matter is currently under investigation.

Tenet, the No. 2 U.S. hospital company, last quarter posted its first loss in almost four years. Tenet told investors it expected future costs, including some related to medical malpractice lawsuits, that may hurt profit. It is abandoning aggressive pricing strategies that triggered the Medicare audit.

Most physicians working in Tenet hospitals aren't employees of the company. Tenet seeks agreements with physician groups, like the Women's Cancer Center, for doctors to work as independent contractors in its hospitals.

The Inspector General requested documents from Tenet, its Lake Mead Hospital and four of its California hospitals: Community Hospital of Los Gatos, Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, San Ramon Regional Medical Center, and St. Luke Medical Center in Pasadena, which is now closed.

Tenet is trying to sell the 198-bed North Las Vegas hospital.

Shares of Tenet, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., rose 34 cents to $14.74 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading Thursday before the company disclosed the new investigation. The stock has declined 69 percent in the past year. The stock markets were closed today.