Price-Fixing Case Settled by Tenet
Tenet Healthcare Corp., one of its North Carolina hospitals and a group of doctors have settled charges of illegal fixing of prices for medical services, U.S. antitrust authorities said Wednesday.
Piedmont Health Alliance, with 450 member doctors, set the prices for services, “thereby eliminating competition among these physicians†in four counties of western North Carolina, the Federal Trade Commission said.
The agency accused Tenet’s Frye Regional Medical Center of playing a central role in the formation of the doctors alliance as well as helping fix the prices that the group charged.
“PHA’s physician members signed agreements that bound them to participate in all contracts PHA entered and to accept PHA-negotiated prices,†the FTC said.
The settlement bars Santa Barbara-based Tenet and Frye from entering into or negotiating agreements among doctors in the area and orders them to stop receiving payments based on the pricing scheme at issue, the FTC said.
“The Frye settlement with FTC does not constitute an admission that the law was broken,†said Steven Campanini, a Tenet spokesman. “We felt it was in the best interest [of the company] to resolve this matter at Frye and focus our attention on providing quality care in the community.â€
The consent decree does allow Frye to be involved in certain joint ventures with physicians in the area, the antitrust authorities said.
Shares of Tenet fell 11 cents Wednesday to close at $15.45 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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