Description: Throughout the year, no other business has undergone media scrutiny and captured public attention like Columbia/HCA. With extensive coverage from the government's wide-spread investigation to the dramatic ouster of the firm's hard-charging young founder, Rick Scott, Colombia/HCA's saga has become the corporate news story of the nineties. Columbia/HCA is the compelling account of this healthcare colossus, arguably the nation's most publicized business and a firm that has gone from relative obscurity to the peak of notoriety. This title chronicles the rise of Columbia -- a company that started with a $250,000 investment and now (less than a decade later) has a market value of over $20 billion, is the nation's seventh largest employer and remains the world's largest healthcare system. In March, 1997, Federal agents, with sealed search warrants in hand, confiscated the records of Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso, TX. In July, Federal agents seized the records from 35 Columbia/HCA facilities across the country, along with indicting 3 Columbia/HCA senior managers. What was the basis for these search warrants, medicare fraud and abuse violations pert to billing and reimbursement violations from their hospitals, home health agencies and physician offices. Included is improper compensation plans and incentives for the thousands of physicians under court with Columbia/HCA. These activities by the federal government lead to the termination of Rick Scott, founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in August, 1997. The book is filled with anecdotes and milestones that provide a backdrop against which to better understand the recent events surrounding the embattled Columbia/HCA, as well as chronicling thegenesis of for-profit hospital chains and their overall effect on today's healthcare.

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