ATLANTA – Paul D. Weir, John R. Morgan, M.D. and the company they created, Care Plus Management, LLC (“Care Plus”), along with 18 anesthesia entities that Care Plus owned and operated, agreed to pay $7.2 million to resolve allegations that they entered into kickback arrangements with referring physicians in exchange for the referral of the physicians’ patients for anesthesia services. Specifically, Weir and Morgan, through Care Plus, shared the revenue received for anesthesia services with the referring physicians, and provided subsidies for drugs, supplies and equipment to the referring physicians’ outpatient surgical centers.
“A physician’s selection of an anesthesia provider for the patients he or she treats should be motivated by the quality of the anesthesia provider rather than by the income the physician can generate for him or herself,” said U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine. “By offering remuneration to physicians, an anesthesia provider improperly affects the physician’s decision-making process for selecting an anesthesia provider for his or her patients.”
“Health care providers using kickbacks to boost their profits threaten the impartiality of medical decision-making, the financial integrity of Medicaid, and the public’s trust in the health care system,” said Special Agent in Charge Tamala E. Miles, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). “Our agency will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to uproot such...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...