By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
A top federal prosecutor says a North Texas hospital has agreed to pay nearly $1 million to settle allegations that it filed false Medicare claims.
U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of Dallas said Monday that Arlington Memorial Hospital would pay just over $990,000 while not admitting wrongdoing in a civil case involving the federal False Claims Act.
The Arlington hospital disclosed to the government in 2007 that a contract with a physicians group to interpret heart blood tests potentially violated federal law.
An investigation revealed that the hospital continued to pay the doctors even though such tests no longer required professional interpretation. Jacks said Medicare reimbursed the hospital for those expenses from 2003 to 2007.
Houston mayor calls swearing-in milestone for gays
New Houston Mayor Annise Parker says her election to lead the state's largest city marks a milestone for gay Americans. But Parker says it's just "one step toward a tomorrow of greater justice."
U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore administered the oath of office to Parker today in a public repeat of a private swearing-in ceremony over the weekend. Parker's partner, Kathy Hubbard, held a Bible for the swearing-in that belonged to Parker's grandparents.
Parker took almost 54 percent of the vote in a runoff last month, defeating former city attorney Gene Locke in a race to succeed Bill White, who had reached his term limit. Her election made Houston the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor.
Addressing more than 1,000 people in Houston's Wortham Theater, Parker said that while the nation's fourth-largest city shocked the world by electing her, it didn't surprise its own people. In her words, "We have a tradition of electing mayors not for who they are but for what they believe we can do as a city."
Addressing the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community specifically, she said, "Your bravery in the face of threat, your grace in the face of insult, sustains me." She added, "I will gladly carry you forward, but today is simply one step toward a tomorrow of greater justice."
FDA downgrades airline caterer
Federal regulators have downgraded a Denver facility that prepares airline food after inspectors found live and dead roaches and listeria bacteria in the kitchen.
If the company flunks a follow-up inspection, it could be barred from selling food to the airlines.
The company, LSG Sky Chefs, provides food to Delta, American, United and other airlines. A spokeswoman said Monday that the company fired the head chef and mounted an aggressive clean-up and believes it will pass a follow-up inspection.
According to a Food and Drug Adminstration letter to the company obtained by The Associated Press, inspectors found live and dead roaches "too numerous to count" in several areas of the kitchen, including at least 40 live insects in the silverware station.