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LEGAL UPDATE
Joshua Kaye, JD, and Adam Rogers, JD
Dirty Dealing?
Whistleblower suit alleges corporate partner rigged
share prices to entice new and existing docs to bring cases.
A
whistleblower
lawsuit alleges
that Meridian
Surgical Partners, the
majority owner and
operator of 17 ambulatory surgical centers
nationwide, bought a
majority stake in a surgery center at inflated
WHISTLE ON THE PLAY Meridian Surgical Partners
prices to incentivize
allegedly purchased its stake in an ASC at inflated prices,
existing physician-own- then sold minority interests to new surgeons at significant
discounts, according to a whistleblower lawsuit.
ers to keep bringing
cases, and then re-syndicated the ASC a few months later by selling
minority interests to new referring physicians at artificially low prices
to incentivize them as well. Earlier this year a judge denied a motion
to dismiss the whistleblower suit on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence for it to proceed. Here are the lessons we can take
from this case.
Simmons v. Meridian
In the case of Simmons v. Meridian, filed in 2012, Thomas Reed
Simmons, the center's business manager from May 2008 to September
2011, accuses Meridian and Treasure Coast Center for Surgery in
Stuart, Fla., of offering the highest-referring physicians the opportunity to buy ownership shares at a discount. Mr. Simmons' complaint further alleges that physician-owners were paid higher annual returns on
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2013
