INDIANAPOLIS - It’s a massive case against a large Indiana hospital system that shows no signs up wrapping up soon.
Three years after the federal government filed a lawsuit against Community Health Network, alleging the system engaged in a years-long scheme to recruit physicians and pay them huge salaries and bonuses in return for referrals, the two sides continue to wrangle in scores of court filings.
This month, Community Health pushed back against questions from the U.S. Justice Department that it identify every physician it employs who received incentive compensation and explain how the bonuses were calculated or determined.
“Community objects to this interrogatory as overly broad, unduly burdensome and not proportional to the needs of the case,” the hospital system said in a Feb. 17 filing.
Even so, the Indianapolis-based system, which operates eight hospitals and hundreds of clinics, surgery centers and urgent-care centers, acknowledged that it employed a total of 1,201 physicians between 2008 and 2020.
It said that of the more than 6,000 instances in which a physician received incentive compensation during the period, in only 200 instances did a physician get incentives for meeting a so-called “service line financial performance metric.”
Examples of metrics, it said, are patient safety, clinical efficacy and cost effectiveness. Community said it was preparing a spreadsheet that provided “relevant data” for the 200 instances.
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