Just over a week after three senior Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp executives were indicted for questionable business practices, the world's largest healthcare company is rewriting virtually every policy that's drawn scrutiny from federal investigators auditing its operations.
Today's New York Times reports the paper has obtained internal Columbia documents detailing plans for a "total change in culture" that would include selling its home health care business, eliminating all employee cash-bonus programs, beefing up regulation enforcement and compliance among employees, and abandoning the profitable practice of selling interests in hospitals to its doctors. It sounds like the prescription of new CEO Dr. Thomas Frist on the job for just 12 days who's been trying to convince the feds that improprieties are exceptions at Columbia.