ENFORCEMENT WATCH:
Teaching Hospitals Need To Brush Up On Supervision Rules
Published on Sun Dec 19, 2004
Feds bring $2.2 million lesson to California university. Services provided by residents and interns need to have faculty supervision well-documented. Falling short could mean a long-term drain on a university's resources.
Physicians at Teaching Hospitals (PATH) - the government's nationwide probe into compliance with direct supervision rules - just reeled in a $2.2 million settlement with doctors from Seventh-day Adventist affiliated Loma Linda University.
According to U.S. Attorney Debra Yang, 20 faculty practice corporations related to the university allegedly claimed services directly performed by faculty members without enough evidence to prove that the doctors had been personally involved in performing the services.
Investigators also found evidence that the corporations submitted claims for greater levels of service than what had been documented.
Lesson Learned: Teaching facilities should move quickly to shore up compliance measures - or risk becoming a target of PATH.