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Columbia squeezes docs
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March 26, 1998: 6:23 a.m. ET
In eye of federal probe, hospital firm presses own doctors to cough up rent
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The president of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. is turning the screw on his hospital executives to compel their doctors to cough up back rent and other money owed for use of hospital facilities, according to a published report.
Some doctors may receive bills for thousands of dollars after Columbia's (COL) president, Jack Bovender, made a conference call Monday to hundreds of chief executives urging them to crack down on delinquent doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Bovender's campaign is part of a broader effort by the company to unravel potentially questionable physician deals. It coincides with a federal probe into allegations of massive Medicare-fraud at the giant health care services company.
"I don't know why some of these arrearages were created, but there are arrearages, and we are discussing with physicians and trying to make appropriate payment plans, Alan Yuspeh, Columbia's ethics tsar, told the Journal.
"In cases where we have physician receivables where there are amounts owed to us," Yuspeh added, "we feel that we have an obligation to collect them."
Yuspeh told the Journal that Bovender had created a five-person team to supervise the collection of back dues. He added that Bovender had made collection "a personal issue."
In recent months, Columbia has also bought back any physician-owned shares in Columbia hospitals, according to the Journal.
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Columbia/HCA
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