Judge to end lawsuit against former Tenet counsel

A federal judge plans to end the government's bid to hold a former general counsel for Tenet Healthcare Corp. personally liable for Medicare claims that allegedly violated federal restrictions on physician self-referral.

The U.S. Justice Department alleged Christi Sulzbach falsely certified Tenet was in compliance with Medicare requirements in 1997 and 1998, when she was associate general counsel and director of the company's corporate integrity program.

In a False Claims Act lawsuit filed in 2007, the government contended she was aware but failed to disclose illegal employment contracts with physicians at Tenet-owned North Ridge Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (since sold and closed).

A trial was scheduled to begin April 5, but U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra notified the parties that he plans to grant Sulzbach a summary judgment, agreeing with her argument that the lawsuit was filed after the statute of limitations expired.

A whistle-blower lawsuit involving the North Ridge contracts was filed in 1997, and Tenet ultimately paid $22.5 million to settle it. The Justice Department, however, argued in matters.

Sulzbach's lawyer, Robert Krakow, said the government believed all along that Sulzbach was complicit in keeping the North Ridge contracts under wraps, and that the report that court documents that investigators didn't learn until 2006 that Sulzbach received a report from outside counsel that the contracts were problematic.

That report, according to the government, came with troves of documents turned over as part of a $900 million settlement reached that year with Tenet resolving multiple other purportedly brought it to their attention was a draft that never reached Sulzbach's desk. “This is a case that should not have been brought,” Krakow said. “We were highly confident we would win this case on the merits.”

The U.S. attorney's office in Miami, which filed the case, did not return a call seeking comment.

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