At California Hospital, Red Flags and an FBI Raid -WP

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Don Frank considered the chain-smoking Moon a personal friend. They were members of the same golf club and often exchanged pleasantries on the course.

Moon gave Frank an angiogram, an ultrasound and some bad news: He said he had spotted plaque in Frank's left descending artery. "He told me, 'If that breaks loose, you could be dead before you hit the floor,' " Frank recalled.

Frank was shocked but quickly scheduled surgery, taking comfort in Redding Medical Center's excellent reputation. The 238-bed hospital overlooking the Sacramento River boasted that it did more open-heart surgery and cardiac tests than teaching hospitals twice its size. Just that summer the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations awarded Redding a grade of 94, among the highest in the country.

All of that quickly changed in October 2002, a few months after Frank's surgery, when FBI agents raided the hospital looking for evidence that doctors were performing unnecessary tests and heart surgery on healthy patients, including Frank.

It took a whistle-blower to alert the FBI about what turned out to be one of the nation's worst examples of overzealous medicine. But warning signs about Redding were in plain sight for years, documents show. That they were ignored goes a long way toward explaining the breakdown in oversight of the nation's health providers....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072400969.html

[mike_c]

1. wtf-- this story is dated July 25 2005...

...but it's an old story. There doesn't appear to be any new information in it. Here's a link to the story when from 2003 (not in the NYT): http://www.northcoastjournal.com/112003/cover1120.html

Here's one from 2002: http://www.wmolaw.com/flash/medical_necessity.html

Here a link that quotes a NYT article from 2002: http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2002/Unneeded-Surgeries-Redding2nov02.htm

I wonder why this was republished now?

[Rose Siding]

2. The Post is doing a series on medicare woes

There are several articles covering topics that aren't exactly "breaking", but I hadn't seen it before and found it interesting.

[mike_c]

4. ok-- I didn't know the context....

:hi:

[Fridays Child]

3. This needs to be on the evening news.