North Texas hospitals engaged in bidding war to lure surgeons with kickbacks, witness says
Court documents in an illegal healthcare kickback case describe a corrupt system in which North Texas hospitals competed with each other for patients by handing out money, and surgeons brought their patients to the highest bidder.
The allegations were described in a plea agreement for one of the alleged ringleaders in the Forest Park Medical Center kickback case.
Dr. Richard Toussaint agreed on Thursday to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to pay and receive health care bribes and kickbacks and one count of commercial bribery. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the two counts. A judge will have to approve the deal before it becomes official. He had been facing 20 counts.
He founded Forest Park along with Dr. Wade Barker and others as an out-of-network hospital. That allowed it to set its own prices for services, meaning the hospital was paid higher rates than in-network providers. The hospital's owners initially refused to join insurance networks to allow its physician investors to profit from the higher reimbursements, federal authorities say.
Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/02/17/north-texas-hospitals-engaged-bidding-war-lure-surgeons-kickbacks-witness-says