Day 138

May 18, 2017  Farce 

Today, I found out the real reason we're working such long hours and getting money in the door. 
 
In 2014, a physician didn't have his contract renewed over some pretty petty stuff, e.g., a sexual relationship with a coworker, questionable prescriptions for controlled pain medicine, etc.  After his dismissal, he turned whistleblower, accused our healthcare system of ordering unnecessary treatments for patients, incorrect billing to Medicare and other insurance companies, and stated the reason he was fired was because he kept talking to his superiors about the issues. 

He filed a wrongful discharge suit against my employers, then testified in two separate cases for the Department of Justice. 
 
The subsequent investigations determined there was no fraud on our part, we were completely cleared of that charge, but there were a few incidents of incorrect billing – totally benign, not fraud.   
 
The physician's wrongful discharge suit was thrown out as unsubstantiated, but we had to refund quite a bit of money to the insurance companies and the DoJ assessed penalties of $34,000,000. 

So, there you have it... in a nutshell.