Strange Tony,
Having lots of names came in handy for Gentiva/Kindred/Curo in its settlement with the Justice Department for fraudulent billing. The nearly $20 million settlement involved mostly Curo branded hospices. The bad behavior began in early 2010 and went on until year end 2023 over various individual hospices. The settlement agreement has the specific breakdowns.
That Curo hospices behaved unethically is no surprise and calls into question the judgement of Humana and its financial rapscallion partners (TPG and WCAS) as they chose to impose the Curo model on Kindred's hospices (which were generally much larger and greater in number than Curo's brands).
That decision destroyed our once nationally ranked hospice. We went from a Kindred sized hospice of over 100 hospice patient census to half that (Curo sized). It turns out referral sources expect someone to answer the phone and show up when needed. Curo's technology and staffing model did not enable this level of service delivery.
Left out of this settlement were any of the company's owners whose financial practices encouraged, almost demanded, unethical behavior. If the company can steal pay and mileage from employees, surely an enterprising branch manager can steal from Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare.
Humana, TPG, CDR and WCAS take a bow. Bad behavior from June 2018 to December 2023 rests on your shoulders.
I wonder how far Humana CEO Bruce Broussard's Washington, D.C. office is from the Justice Department and how many trips he made to Capital Hill to put this issue to bed. Surely he and the boys from CDR/TPG/WCAS put a bug in someone's ear.
The latest Gentiva/Kindred settlement makes me realize how our legendary Medical Director kept the ethical wolves at bay for so long. Our census stayed high due to his care and concern for patients and their families. Money flow kept regional and national corporate parasites in check.
He loved to tell our corporate visitors about the special closet in the national office where new recruits were taken in and had half their brains sucked out. Their facial expressions were priceless. Thank heaven he retired before Humana/TPG?WCAS trashed his baby. Our legend was a hospice doc to the very end. God rest his soul and God help those suffering under greedy fools.
Anonymous
