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Judge Delays Ruling on Tenet Bid to Dismiss Case

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From Bloomberg News

A U.S. judge in San Diego won’t immediately rule on a bid by Tenet Healthcare Corp., the second-largest U.S. hospital chain, to dismiss a case over what prosecutors claim were illegal payments to doctors in exchange for patient referrals.

Tenet asked the judge to dismiss the case Jan. 26, a day before jurors were scheduled to hear closing arguments. The Dallas-based company argued that prosecutors had failed to show that its Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego, the facility’s former chief executive or the company “knowingly or willfully violated any law.”

“I’m going to let it go to the jury,” U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said at a hearing Tuesday. “I’ll rule afterward. Maybe it will be necessary and maybe it won’t.”

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Trial began in October in the case brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego, which claims Tenet paid about 100 physicians more than $10 million through relocation agreements intended to encourage the doctors to refer patients to Alvarado Hospital.

If convicted, Alvarado and the Tenet unit that owns it could be excluded from some government programs.

Prosecutors in at least four other cities are investigating similar claims.

Shares of Tenet rose 7 cents Tuesday to $10 on the New York Stock Exchange.

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