Tulare District Healthcare System — which operates hospital facilities in central California — agreed to pay more than $2.4 million to settle allegations that it provided kickbacks to doctors who referred Medicare patients to Tulare. The allegations were made by whistleblower Maria Lucy Reimche, Tulare’s former Chief Financial Officer. According to Reimche, for more than seven years Tulare provided financial incentives to doctors in violation of the Anti-Kick Statute and Stark law and disguised such kickbacks through rental and sale of commercial real estate to doctors far below fair market value and loans to doctors that were later forgiven. Read the DoJ press release, here.

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