Posted on 05/19/2007 2:19:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON -- California lawmakers are questioning whether an auditing company in which San Francisco investor Richard Blum, the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has a major financial stake is rejecting Medicare claims at California rehabilitation hospitals to reap millions of dollars in profits at the expense of patient care.
The company, PRG-Schultz International, has a contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the overseer of the Medicare program, to check payments in California for mistakes. Its only pay is a bounty of up to 30 percent on the overcharges it identifies.
The California Hospital Association first raised concerns last November that PRG-Schultz was targeting rehabilitation hospitals for billing Medicare for taking patients after knee or hip replacement surgery. It said the auditor has been reviewing thousands of cases as far back as 2002. Nearly all of those have been rejected as medically unnecessary.
Her husband's business interests in PRG-Schultz have become awkward for Feinstein, the state's senior Democratic senator, as the hospital association turns to Congress for relief.
Feinstein's press aide, Scott Gerber, said the senator played no role in the legislation creating the auditing program and did not intervene with the program administrators to help PRG-Schultz get the three-year contract in 2005.
On Thursday, after questions from McClatchy Newspapers, Feinstein sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that called the hospital association's concerns "potentially serious." ...
Feinstein made no mention of her husband's interest in PRG-Schultz, which she lists in her annual financial disclosure reports. According to PRG-Schultz, Blum's investment companies own 10.5 percent of its outstanding common stock, 53 percent of its outstanding preferred stock and 28 percent of its notes and securities.
A call to Blum Capital Partners asking for comment was not returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Duke Cunningham is a piker compared to these two.
It’s a win-win for Feinstein. Her husband makes a bundle, and at the same time she adds further burden to the health care system, so that they can continue to demagogue national health care by talking about what a basket case the current system is.
—I eagerly await a major expose’ in the NYT , resulting in Her Feinsteiness’ resignation from the Senate-—(sarc)-—
FEinstein: bad.
Feinstein needs to go.
ding
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