2nd Hospital Exec Gets Prison in Fraud Case

A federal judge sentenced a second Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. executive to prison, and imposed fines and restitution of about $1.7 million for defrauding Medicare and other government health insurance programs, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kathleen Haley said. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bucklew ordered Jay Jarrell, 44, to serve 33 months in prison and imposed a fine of $10,000 and restitution of about $1.7 million, Haley said. Jarrell, who rose to chief executive of the leading U.S. hospital chain’s southwest Florida division before his 1997 indictment, was found guilty by a federal jury in July of six counts of defrauding government health insurance programs. He and Robert Whiteside, 49, a former Columbia/HCA director of reimbursement, are the only executives who have been found guilty of health-care fraud in the government’s three-year investigation of the Nashville-based company. Whiteside was sentenced by Bucklew earlier this month to spend two years in prison and to pay more than $650,000 in fines and restitution.