Compliance & Legal
Agency says the hospitals would have a dominant market share of inpatient services in a 21-county area.
Staffing and productivity issues remain, and with grace periods over, that could spell trouble.
Payout settles allegations of illegal kickbacks paid to clinic owners in exchange for referring patients for labor and delivery services to Tenet facilities.
Just two teaching hospitals with at least 500 beds earned top C. diff prevention scores, meaning their infection rates were 50 percent better than the national benchmark.
Cox will also be banned from participating in federal healthcare programs for four years, including management of administrative services that would be paid for by federal healthcare dollars.
In 40-plus page decision, federal court says lower court erred in ruling, merger would hurt market competition.
But the challenge isn't easy for accountable care organization practices that lack IT support, Farzad Mostashari says.
The first drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy could sell for $350,000 a year.
Policymakers could create a single, independent organization to develop standards for healthcare performance measures and the data used to populate those measures, the authors said.
Settlement agreement includes another $19.6 million in restitution to customers, interest for late reimbursements to providers.