Texas-based Tenet Healthcare, which owns hospitals across the nation, and two Tenet subsidiaries that formerly operated two hospitals in metro Atlanta have agreed to pay more than $516 million to settle a federal whistleblower case alleging a kickback and bribery scheme that defrauded the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors in Georgia and Washington on Monday announced the resolution of the long-running whistleblower suit as well as guilty pleas by two Tenet corporate subsidiaries that owned Atlanta Medical Center and North Fulton Hospital until Tenet sold them last April. The two Tenet subsidiaries pleaded to conspiring to pay and receive kickbacks and bribes that defrauded the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs, according to the plea agreement. The two subsidiaries that owned the hospitals together will forfeit more than $145 million as part of the plea.
