MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The United States has filed suit against Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) and Methodist Healthcare Memphis Hospitals (Methodist) for paying unlawful kickbacks to a local clinic in exchange for patient referrals.
A release from the Department of Justice said the hospitals violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and Anti-Kickback Statue (AKS) by allegedly paying West Clinic, P.C. (West) in exchange for West’s patient referrals.
The U.S. seeks to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from the lawsuit.
In December 2019, David M. Stern, M.D., the former Executive Dean and Vice Chancellor at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, who served on the Board of Directors of MLH from 2011 to 2017, joined the lawsuit. Stern was also a member of the Executive Cancer Council and the Steering Committee for the West Cancer Center.