SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The largest health and hospital system in Utah is agreeing to hand over $25.5 million to the federal government to settle claims it improperly contracted with doctors.
Intermountain Healthcare released information about the settlement and claims Wednesday in a statement, saying an internal review launched in 2008 found the nonprofit health system may have had improper financial ties to doctors who referred patients to its hospitals.
“We strive to be compliant. We strive to be a model health care system. And this does not fit with who we really are,” Brent Wallace, the chief medical officer for Intermountain, said in a statement.
Wallace said the hospital system told federal officials about those contracts in 2009.
Wallace characterized the biggest issues in the settlement as lapses in paperwork. For example, Intermountain was renting office space to Physicians in Idaho and in Richfield, Utah, but did not renew those leases on time, he said.