MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A former Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center doctor who blew the whistle on improper billing of federal health programs by the New Hampshire hospital says his warnings about the problem went unheeded for six years before he filed a complaint with Vermont’s top federal prosecutor.
The comments by Dr. Thomas Prendergast, who now works at a Veterans Administration hospital in Portland, Oregon, follow the announcement this week that Dartmouth-Hitchcock will pay more than $2.2 million to settle claims that it billed for work by physicians that actually just involved resident physicians in training.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock denied any wrongdoing, but said it has worked to improve its billing practices.
Prendergast told the Associated Press that after he filed his complaint, he and the hospital jointly decided he should find a new job.
