“We are reviewing Congressman Pascrell’s letter and will respond to his requests for information,” HCA said in a statement to Becker’s Hospital Review. Pascrell also wrote to HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen, requesting details about incentives for physicians related to patient admissions, a description of data collected related to physician performance, and a description of the company’s internal review processes. “HCA’s long-standing joint venture with EmCare, a subsidiary of private-equity-owned Envision Healthcare, may play an essential role in the setting and/or implementation of these admission targets.” “There have also been allegations that HCA sets corporate admission targets and routinely threatens retaliation against staff if those targets are not met,” Pascrell wrote. Pascrell asked HHS to investigate HCA’s joint venture with EmCare, which provides emergency physician staffing in many of HCA’s hospitals. history - as well as other health fraud settlements involving HCA in subsequent years.” “I am especially alarmed by these findings given HCA’s history of health care fraud settlements with both federal and state authorities,” Pascrell wrote. “This includes a settlement for $1.7 billion in the early 2000s that resolved multiple criminal counts and civil fraud allegations - at the time the largest health care fraud in U.S.

Pascrell cited a report by the Service Employees International Union that HCA may have billed Medicare as much as $1.8 billion in unnecessary admissions from 2008 to 2019. Pascrell asked Becerra to investigate whether HCA, a 182-hospital system that owns and operates Asheville’s Mission Hospital, five other hospitals in western North Carolina, and many other healthcare facilities in the area, is improperly admitting patients to hospitals when patients do not require inpatient care. 13 to Health and Human Services HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey, wrote in a letter Sept. “Recent reports of systematic, unnecessary inpatient admissions intended to raise more-profitable reimbursement rates, in addition to severe understaffing issues, raise disturbing questions about HCA’s corporate policies and practices,” Rep.

House Ways and Means Committee’s oversight subcommittee is calling for an investigation into Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare over reports of alleged fraud and staffing issues at its facilities.

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