Tenet Still Unsettled

Technically, Skolnick says, the government could seek triple damages -- or $4.8 billion -- from Tenet. She, like most, doubts that will happen. Still, she believes the company faces a sizable fine and some hospital sales that Wall Street has not anticipated. The company itself hopes to reach a fair monetary settlement and then turn around its core 69-hospital chain.

Based on financial reports obtained by the Tenet Shareholder Committee, a group long critical of management, most of those hospitals clearly need some help. Indeed, those figures show, some 64% of Tenet's hospitals have been losing money.

Skolnick says the performance of some of those hospitals -- helped by managed care pricing hikes -- has probably improved. Still, she says, the company has a long way to go before it recovers. In the meantime, she believes that Tenet fans keep grasping at straws and simply hoping for the best.

"How bad news is sometimes made into good news never ceases to amaze me," she says. "But eventually, logic, order and discipline do prevail in the stock market."