The U.S. District Court in Fort Wayne, Ind., has granted the U.S. Department of Justice an additional six months to decide whether it will intervene as co-plaintiff in a whistleblower suit against Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, according to a Tennessean report.
The suit was filed in December 2010 by Nancy Reuille, a former auditor and care management supervisor with Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Ind. CHS acquired Lutheran when it purchased its parent company, Triad Hospitals, in 2007. Ms. Reuille claims that under CHS management, Lutheran admitted patients that didn't meet the Medicare's inpatient status criteria.
"We believe this filing indicates the investigation is not going away, but expanding," Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst with CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Conn., said in the news report. "It is not the 'it's nothing, it's going away' or 'settlement soon' outcome that some more optimistic folks on (Wall) Street had hoped and argued for."
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The suit was filed in December 2010 by Nancy Reuille, a former auditor and care management supervisor with Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Ind. CHS acquired Lutheran when it purchased its parent company, Triad Hospitals, in 2007. Ms. Reuille claims that under CHS management, Lutheran admitted patients that didn't meet the Medicare's inpatient status criteria.
"We believe this filing indicates the investigation is not going away, but expanding," Sheryl Skolnick, an analyst with CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Conn., said in the news report. "It is not the 'it's nothing, it's going away' or 'settlement soon' outcome that some more optimistic folks on (Wall) Street had hoped and argued for."
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