Clinic Owner, Hospital Exec Plead Guilty to Kickbacks

A Dunwoody owner of medical clinics that catered to uninsured women has pleaded guilty to conspiring with an Atlanta hospital executive to receive kickbacks.

Tracey Cota, 50, of Dunwoody, and Gary Lang, 58, of Atlanta have pleaded guilty to violating the Anti-Kickback Statute by paying and receiving illegal payments in exchange for Medicaid patient referrals to hospitals in the Atlanta area and on Hilton Head Island, S.C., according to federal authorities. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

Cota owned and operated Clinica de la Mama, a Georgia company that operated medical clinics in the Atlanta area and on Hilton Head Island, according to court records. The clinics specialized in the provision of prenatal care services to primarily undocumented Hispanic women. Medicaid paid some costs associated with their labor and delivery and the care of their newborns at hospitals.

Lang was the CEO of an Atlanta hospital that was enrolled as a provider in the Georgia Medicaid program.

Between July 2000 and July 2012, Cota conspired with executives from Atlanta-area hospitals, including Lang, to compensate Clinica for the referral of patients to the hospitals. Federal authorities say arrangement tallied Medicaid reimbursements of over $100 million to the hospitals.

“Our federal health care programs depend on providers exercising independent judgment in the best interests of patients,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. “These illegal referral arrangements resulted in women being steered to deliver their babies at hospitals on the basis of Clinica’s and the hospitals’ financial self-interest, regardless of whether it was in the women’s best interest.”

“It is unacceptable that health care providers would scheme to refer uninsured mothers about to deliver their babies to hospitals based on a kickback agreement designed to boost profits rather than based on who would provide the best health care to the mothers and newborns,” said Special Agent in Charge Derrick L. Jackson, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.