Shasta Regional Medical Center, formerly known as Redding Medical Center and Memorial Hospital, is a general acute care hospital that is located in

Redding, California Redding is a city in and the county seat of Shasta County, California, and the economic and cultural capital of the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California. Redding lies along the Sacramento River, north of Sacramento, California, Sacrame ...

. It opened in 1945 and currently has 226 beds with a basic emergency department.

History

The hospital was founded by Dr. Thomas Wyatt, M.D., in 1945 as Memorial Hospital. It was purchased by

Tenet Healthcare Corporation Tenet Healthcare Corporation is an American for-profit multinational corporation, multinational healthcare services company based in Dallas, Texas. Through its brands, subsidiaries, joint ventures, and partnerships, including United Surgical Pa ...

in 1976 and renamed Redding Medical Center. In 2008, it was sold to Hospital Partners of America and renamed Shasta Regional Medical Center.

Legal issues

In 2002, amid a federal investigation of two cardiologists at the hospital, Drs. Chae Hyun Moon and Fidel Realyvasquez,Washington Post 7/25/2005
/ref> and as part of a settlement with federal regulators, Tenet Healthcare Corporation was compelled to sell the hospital to Hospital Partners of America for US$60 million in 2004.

Unnecessary care and billing

At Redding Medical Center, the early-2000s investigation, raid and litigation were prompted because "physicians undertook large volumes of inappropriate and unnecessary procedures on largely healthy patients". The investigation into Moon and Realyvasquez was the result of multiple whistleblower lawsuits filed under the Federal

False Claims Act False or falsehood may refer to: * False (logic), the negation of truth in classical logic * Lie or falsehood, a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement * False statement, aka a falsehood, falsity, misstatement or untruth, is a st ...

alleging unnecessary medical procedures. Catholic Priest

John Corapi John Anthony Corapi (born May 20, 1947), formerly known as Fr. John Corapi, is an inactive Catholic priest of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (S.O.L.T.) in the United States. He was popular in the early 2000s for his regular appe ...

, Joseph Zerga and Redding physician Patrick Campbell split 15% of the total $62.55 million settlement. Tenet had already agreed to pay $54 million in 2003 to settle the federal case without admitting any wrongdoing but with an agreement for new oversight procedures for physicians and staff. In 2004, Tenet established a $395 million fund for 769 cardiac patients to settle civil suits relating to procedures performed by Moon and Realyvasquez. There was evidence that

Prime Healthcare Services Prime Healthcare is a for-profit headquartered in Ontario, California. It was established in 2001 by chairman and CEO Prem Reddy, and operates 51 hospitals in 14 states. History Prime Healthcare Services began in 1985 when Prem Reddy fou ...

engaged in upcoding elderly patients to

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...

. At Shasta Regional Medical Center, Prime reported 16.1% of their Medicare patients suffered from

kwashiorkor Kwashiorkor ( , is also ) is a form of severe protein malnutrition characterized by edema and an enlarged liver with fatty infiltrates. It is thought to be caused by sufficient calorie intake, but with insufficient protein consumption (or lac ...

. The state of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

average for Medicare patients is 0.2% suffering from kwashiorkor. Prime Healthcare Services was investigated for

Medicare fraud In the United States, Medicare fraud is the claiming of Medicare (United States), Medicare health care reimbursement to which the claimant is not entitled. There are many different types of Medicare fraud, all of which have the same goal: to collec ...

United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

and the

California Department of Justice The California Department of Justice is a statewide investigative law enforcement agency and legal department of the California executive branch under the elected leadership of the Attorney General of California (AG) which carries out comple ...

. In 2013, SRMC agreed to a settlement regarding claims of HIPAA violations when 2 senior leaders met with a reporter to discuss medical services provided to a patient. In 2021, Prime Healthcare & 2 doctors agreed to pay $37.5 Million to settle allegations of violations of the California False Claims Act.

References

External links

This hospital in the CA Healthcare Atlas
A project by OSHPD {{Authority control Hospital buildings completed in 1945 Hospitals established in 1945 1945 establishments in California Hospitals in California Redding, California Buildings and structures in Shasta County, California Prime Healthcare Services Buildings and structures in Redding, California