Flower Mound Hospital Partners LLC (Flower Mound Hospital), a partially physician-owned hospital in Flower Mound, Texas, has agreed to pay $18.2 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly submitting claims to the Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE programs that resulted from violations of the Physician Self-Referral Law and the Anti‑Kickback Statute. The settlement resolves allegations that Flower Mound Hospital violated the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute when it repurchased shares from physician-owners aged 63 or older and then resold those shares to younger physicians. The United States alleges that Flower Mound Hospital impermissibly took into account the volume or value of certain physicians’ referrals when it (1) selected the physicians to whom the shares would be resold and (2) determined the number of shares each physician would receive.
