Ex-Chief of Columbia/HCA’s Homecare Named in Affidavit

The former head of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp.’s home health-care division is named in newly unsealed court documents describing a conspiracy by company executives to defraud Medicare and other government health insurance programs.

Debra Wertzberger, who resigned from Columbia/HCA in October 1997, is the most senior company executive so far to be linked to what the government maintains was a “systemic” scheme by the nation’s largest hospital company to submit fraudulent claims for Medicare payments.

Wertzberger, 44, and Michael Rusnak, who is listed in court documents as Columbia Homecare senior vice president, are named in an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Joe Ford on July 7, 1997, and unsealed Friday by U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew in Tampa, Fla. Neither Wertzberger nor Rusnak faces criminal charges.

Wertzberger, Rusnak and five other former Columbia/HCA executives “conspired with others to submit false Medicare, Medicaid and CHAMPUS hospital cost reports and false claims” to collect payments under the three government health programs, the affidavit says.

To date, only four Columbia/HCA executives have been indicted on criminal fraud charges, and their case focuses on allegations of wrongdoing in Florida.

Separately, the affidavit details for the first time the government’s allegations that Columbia/HCA bribed doctors for patient referrals in Texas by setting up a “shell” medical laboratory.

Wertzberger, reached at her home in McKinney, Texas, said she had “not heard or seen anything from the government since I left” Columbia/HCA.

She said she has never been contacted by government investigators in connection with the case.

Efforts to locate Rusnak were not successful.