Quorum Health Group

Alliance Imaging Inc. said Thursday that it has been awarded a three-year contract to be one of two preferred providers of diagnostic imaging services to hospitals and clinics managed and owned by Quorum Health Group Inc. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Alliance Imaging Inc. said Thursday that it has been awarded a three-year contract to be one of two preferred providers of diagnostic imaging services to hospitals and clinics managed and owned by Quorum Health Group Inc. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the second-biggest U.S. hospital chain, will pay $55.8 million to settle several allegations of Medicare fraud, including a whistle-blower lawsuit claiming that Tenet's Brotman Medical Center in Culver City filed false cost reports. The Santa Barbara-based company took reserves for the settlement before Feb. 28, the end of its fiscal third quarter, Tenet said. Tenet's settlement is the latest in a series involving hospitals that overbilled Medicare.

The Justice Department on Monday joined a whistle-blower lawsuit charging Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., the nation's largest hospital chain, with a massive scheme to defraud Medicare by filing inflated cost reports. The government has "been damaged in the amount of many millions of dollars," the Justice Department said in legal documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla. Also named as a defendant in the case is Quorum Health Group Inc.

* Richard Andrews has been named vice president of the U.S. risk consulting division of EQE International in Newport Beach. Director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services for California from 1991 to 1998, Andrews also served as senior policy advisor to the governor for public safety. * Lee Greytak has joined Orange Coast Title Co. in Santa Ana as vice president of finance and administration. He is responsible for all financial and human resource functions of the company.

The Santa Paula City Council will hold an emergency closed-door meeting today to devise a plan to keep the financially troubled Santa Paula Memorial Hospital afloat. Doctors, patients and community members are so worried about the institution's financial situation that they have contacted council members in recent days to say they feared the hospital would close before a deal could be struck to merge with Ventura County's public hospital system.

Santa Paula Memorial Hospital, a tiny community-owned facility awash in red ink, should speed up efforts to affiliate or merge with a larger medical center if it hopes to survive, a committee formed to save the hospital has concluded. The special committee, representing the farming communities of the rural Santa Clara Valley, recommended Wednesday evening that the faltering hospital forgo a proposed consultant's study and immediately begin talks with potential partners.

National Medical Enterprises Inc., which has been plagued by charges of fraud, patient mistreatment and other abuses at its psychiatric hospitals, appears close to divesting most of that business. Santa Monica-based NME said Friday that it is in "serious negotiations" to sell 51 of its psychiatric facilities to Charter Medical Corp., the nation's largest private operator of psychiatric hospitals. Charter, based in Macon, Ga.

The final members of a committee to save Santa Paula Memorial Hospital were appointed Tuesday night, just a month before city councils in Santa Paula and Fillmore hope to review the panel's emergency recommendations to keep the tiny hospital afloat. The committee's last four members, named by the Fillmore City Council, join four appointees by the Santa Paula City Council and one by the Piru town council. County Supervisor Kathy Long is also on the panel.

Trustees at struggling Santa Paula Memorial Hospital have voted to affiliate with Ventura County's public hospital system, a move intended to keep the Santa Clara Valley's only medical center open. "While we have improved our financial performance in recent months, an affiliation with the County of Ventura will strengthen our ability to provide important current and future services to the Santa Clara Valley," said board Chairman Phil Romney in a news release announcing Tuesday's decision.

Santa Paula Memorial Hospital has filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in federal court, days after mounting debt forced the 42-year-old institution to close. A lawyer for the hospital, which filed for Chapter 11 in Santa Barbara on Monday, is scheduled to appear in court this morning to ask a judge's permission to use assets to pay its remaining employees. Many of the hospital's 200 full- and part-time employees were given a 30-day notice and are expected to work through Jan.