Georgetown settles PATH lawsuit for $5.3 million
Georgetown settles PATH lawsuit for $5.3 million
Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, has become the fifth medical center to reach a monetary settlement with federal investigators as part of the Physicians at Teaching Hospitals (PATH) initiative.
Georgetown paid $5.3 million to settle charges made by federal investigators that bills were submitted without sufficient documentation that staff physicians were actively involved in the case.
In a prepared statement, Sam Wiesel, MD, Georgetown’s executive vice president, wrote that the amount of the settlement is "reasonable" but doesn’t indicate an admission of wrongdoing. He noted that Georgetown already had budgeted money in anticipation of a possible settlement.
Problems at Georgetown came to light in late 1997, when the OIG asked the medical center to audit its own faculty billings, according to Anthony Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The audit showed that in many cases, work was attributed to staff physicians without sufficient supporting documentation, Lewis maintains.
With the Georgetown settlement, the federal government’s total haul from the PATH initiative now stands at $73 million.
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