Texas Case Shows Challenges in Recouping Cash from Fraud

DALLAS (AP/Staff) — The case of a troubled Texas hospital system that stretched into East Texas shows how a federal program that distributes funds to help computerize health-care records has been vulnerable to fraud. The Dallas Morning News reports that it also shows the challenges in recouping the money that wasn’t used for those purposes. The U.S. Health and Human Services Department gave nearly $18 million through its $24 billion stimulus program to Tariq Mahmood’s rural hospital chain. The newspaper reported in 2013 that the vast majority of the money wasn’t used to upgrade the hospitals’ electronic records. Joe White, who managed the chain, was sentenced to 23 months in prison. Mahmood (pictured) was sentenced to 11 years for separate crimes of billing fraud.