Tenet Changes Counsel as Senate Closes In

For now, the Senate's primary focus is on Redding Medical Center, a rural facility that ranked as Tenet's most profitable hospital before federal agents raided it last year for allegedly performing unnecessary heart procedures. In an effort to reassure the market, Tenet quickly stepped forward and hired the prestigious Mercer Consulting Group to conduct an independent study of Redding's bustling heart business. Nearly a year later, Tenet has yet to release the results of that study, despite repeated requests -- most recently from Grassley -- to do so.

Meanwhile, Redding has gone on to hire new heart doctors to resurrect a busy heart program once considered a model for the rest of the Tenet system. Although Tenet has portrayed the new cardiology team as top-notch, allegations have surfaced that at least one of the new physicians agreed to validate past surgeries carried out by Redding's former stars as part of a multimillion-dollar contract with the hospital.

Just for Kicks

By now, Tenet has been accused of bribing physicians outside of Redding as well. In a mounting probe of Tenet's payments to physicians, federal prosecutors this week filed charges against a second administrator at Tenet's Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego. The government has accused Mina Nazaryan, associate administrator at Alvarado, of arranging illegal kickbacks for doctors who referred patients to the hospital and then taking a cut of the pie for herself. Prosecutors have portrayed Nazaryan as a hospital administrator who spent years breaking the law, and then, faced with getting caught, tried hard to cover her tracks.

Just last week, Nazaryan allegedly made a final, desperate call to doctors involved in the scheme.

"Please help me, for God's sake, so I don't go to jail," she said, according to a Los Angeles Times report based on the federal complaint. "Do whatever you can in your power [so] that I don't go to jail."

But Nazaryan has apparently spent a night or two in jail already. After surrendering to authorities on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, Nazaryan remained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center the following day.

The San Diego Union-Tribune, which covered Nazaryan's bail hearing, reported Thursday that the hospital official was still waiting Thursday for two friends to pledge their homes as collateral for the $250,000 bond that would permit her release.

Moriarty, for one, described the San Diego prosecutor as a "genius." He said that only individual prison sentences, rather than fat corporate fines, will cure companies like Tenet going forward. And he pointed to Nazaryan's desperation as a sign that hospital-level executives will ultimately catapult -- exposing corporate brass -- in an effort to save themselves.

"That assistant U.S. attorney out in San Diego knows exactly what she's doing," he said. "If you start getting the individuals ... the rats start leaping from the sinking ship, and then the game is over."