Five things to know:
1. Affiliates of Surgery Partners notably were involved in a $41 million settlement with the U.S. government over fraudulent billing claims that was announced a week before Surgery Partners disclosed its CARES Act funding.
2. Both a pain management clinic and Florida laboratory, which were involved in the fraudulent billing settlement, received CARES Act funding.
3. Philip Mattera, a research director with Good Jobs First, a nonprofit tracking where such funding is dispersed, said, “You have the federal government on the one hand accusing a company of cheating the government and then you have, [on] the other hand the government giving money to that same company.”
4. Good Jobs First identified at least 200 organizations in similar situations as Surgery Partners. The group is chiding the lack of vetting around fund distribution.
5. An HHS spokesperson said the department accepted most requests except from entities that had lost Medicare billing privileges or had not been allowed to participate in federal healthcare programs.
A Surgery Partners representative did not comment on the story to Time.
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