Cancer care company says it has received no subpoenas

Monday, April 21, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

The head of a group of cancer-treatment centers in California and Southern Nevada doesn't know why the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is investigating the owner of North Las Vegas' Lake Mead Hospital Medical Center, adding that his company has not received any subpoenas in connection with the probe.

Dr. Nick M. Spirtos, medical director of the Women's Cancer Center, which has two offices in Southern Nevada and has privileges to practice at hospitals across the valley, said he doesn't know why the Inspector General of Health and Human Services is seeking documents related to Tenet Healthcare Corp.'s agreements with the cancer-treatment practice.

"I have no more knowledge about (a relationship with) a Tenet hospital than I do any other hospital," Spirtos said Friday. "We're physicians. Our goal was and is to take a very specialty oriented service that was usually operated in university settings and deliver that same quality service to the patient in the community setting."

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Tenet, a hospital company already facing a Medicare audit and other investigations, received the subpoena Thursday seeking documents specifically related to 10 Women's Cancer Center doctors and their relationship with five Tenet hospitals, one of which is closed. One of the other four is Lake Mead Hospital Medical Center in North Las Vegas, which Tenet is attempting to sell.

Spirtos said his Los Gatos, Calif.-based group is a small operation and he has no additional information about why the subpoenas were issued. A representative of the Department of Health and Human Services said the agency has a policy against commenting about pending investigations.

Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini said Thursday when the subpoenas were first disclosed that the company issued a statement about them because it wanted to make it clear that the probe had nothing to do with quality-of-care issues and because Tenet is under such close scrutiny.

The company said civil subpoenas for information from the Office of the Inspector General "are not uncommon in the highly regulated health-care industry."

The federal government is auditing payments Medicare made for the most expensive patients treated at Tenet hospitals. A separate government suit accuses Tenet of charging too much to treat other conditions. Campanini said the Women's Cancer Center request represents a new inquiry unrelated to previously disclosed investigations.