Wahiawa General settled the case in August 2013, though it did not admit liability, and has repaid the government programs, as well as legal fees and related costs totaling $1 million, said Don Olden, the hospital's chief executive officer.
Olden says Wahiawa General got "thrown under the bus" as the billing agent for UH faculty physicians who were responsible for documenting their supervision of the residents, but failed to do so.
"We had to pay for everything. We were billing based on what they told us they did," Olden said. "When we reviewed the bills and documentation, we found out that adequate documentation did not occur. This cost us over $1 million out of pocket. It's money we don't have. That's one of the things we're arguing about. They owe us more than we owe them."
At the time of the investigation, Neal Palafox was the head of the UH family medicine residency program at Wahiawa General. Gov. Neil Abercrombie appointed Palafox director of the Health Department in late 2010 and shortly after asked him to withdraw his nomination, but the governor didn't publicly explain why.
Palafox is still a UH faculty member working at Wahiawa General, but is no longer one of administrators of the program, Olden said. Palafox declined to comment for this story and referred questions to Tina Shelton, spokeswoman for the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine.
For the galatically incompetent here is a link.
https://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/UH-allegedly-owes-1M-in-fraud-case-a-565649#.Wa65kdFlChC
But I'm sure you'll explain why Wahiawa General agreed to the settlement as part of the birth certificate conspiracy.
So there are recriminations going back and forth. If he did something wrong, why isn’t anyone in this article faulting Palafox?