"Community Education" = Sales Calls

Federal investigations of Columbia/HCA have revealed yet another way it manipulated the system to milk millions of dollars from Medicare. The New York Times, citing government documents, reports "...Columbia Hospitals improperly portrayed nonreimbursible costs for marketing and sales as 'community education,' [costs] which are reimbursible. Indeed, directors of community education had recieved bonuses and incentives for developing sales. Rather than providing health education to the community, the affadavit said, executives charged with that responsibility spend most of their time making sales calls to doctors and 'hunting' for patients.... This misrepresentation of community education alone, the government has been told, results in an overstatement of Columbia's reimbursible costs of $30 million to $40 million annually."

(from the New York Times, February 11, 1998)