Doctor to Head Tenet California Operations

Tenet Healthcare Corp. on Monday named Dr. Stephen L. Newman to head the troubled hospital company’s California division, the state’s largest private hospital operator with 40 locations.

Newman, 52, will assume the newly created post of chief executive of Tenet California. His promotion is part of a recent overhaul of Tenet’s management team in response to government probes of the Santa Barbara-based company’s practices, including unusually high Medicare reimbursements and allegedly unnecessary surgeries.

Tenet said a week ago that the executive who had been in charge of its California hospitals, Neil Sorrentino, would retire. Sorrentino’s boss, Thomas Mackey, was ousted as chief operating officer in November.

Sorrentino also had been one of three Tenet divisional heads. Tenet said last week that it planned to consolidate those divisions into two, headed by Reynold Jennings and W. Randolph Smith. Newman will report to Smith, head of Tenet’s Western division.

Newman, who practiced and taught pediatric medicine for nearly 12 years before going into hospital management, previously was a senior executive overseeing nine Tenet hospitals and other facilities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Tenet, with 114 hospitals in 16 states, has come under fire for collecting allegedly excessive Medicare payments for treating the sickest patients, which helped fuel Tenet’s profit growth in recent years. Tenet has denied breaking Medicare rules, though its practices are being probed by the Justice Department.

Tenet’s stock rose 45 cents to $17.20 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.