TENET HEALTHCARE SUES COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEMS TO FIGHT TAKEOVER ALLEGING $1B OWED FOR IMPROPER BILLING VIOLATION OF FALSE CLAIMS ACT

Tenet Healthcare has filed a damaging lawsuit in Federal Court in Dallas alleging that CHS has defrauded the Government by over billing Medicare and that CHS should not be allowed to acquire TENET in a takeover bid. CHS, the suit says, could owe the government in excess of $1 Billion for misbilling and that the company has “systematically admitted, rather than observing patients in the CHS hospitals for financial rather than clinical purposes. The suit claims that CHS systematically reduced observation in Triad, a hospital operator in 2007 a reduction of 52% from the prior year. This spiked profits.