SPRINGFIELD -- CoxHealth and former and current administrators are under investigation for possible Medicare fraud.  That information in court
documents is the first time the federal government has publicly admitted such an investigation is underway.

  CoxHealth is the largest employer in the Ozarks, with nearly 9,000 employees.  It owns three hospitals (including Cox South, shown above), several clinics and other medical facilities.

  Documents filed in U.S. District Court show the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies are looking into several counts of possible wrongdoing, and names a former chief executive officer and a former chief financial officer of CoxHealth as targets of its investigation.  The documents name three other former and current CoxHealth administrators as subjects of the investigation, which means they may have knowledge of criminal wrongdoing or eventually be targets of the investigation.

  The documents are part of the case file of a lawsuit against CoxHealth. U.S. Attorney Todd Graves' office intervened because prosecutors think proceedings in the civil case could hurt the criminal investigation.

   The lawsuit against the health care company charges the plaintiffs were wrongfully fired.  According to the U.S. attorney's filing, CoxHealth employees who the plaintiffs believe are responsible for their firings are either targets or subjects of the criminal investigation.  The government describes its criminal investigation as wide ranging and, in its motion in the civil case, names former CEO Larry Wallis and former CFO Larry Pennel as targets of the investigation.

   Wallis and Pennel were not available for comment on Thursday evening.  In a telephone interview on Thursday, CoxHealth spokeswoman Laurie Cunningham noted that these are unindicted people.

  "I believe they are casting a wide net, but I can't go any
further than that," said Cunningham.

   The investigation of CoxHealth centers on a particular Medicare billing practice for dialysis services.  The investigators believe doctors
were being paid for services that they didn't provide.  Prosecutors want a judge to keep the people referred to as targets of the criminal probe from finding out too much about the possible evidence against them through the discovery process in the civil lawsuit. The other three people named as subjects, not targets, of the investigation are former CoxHealth employee David Tapp, corporate compliance officer Betty Breshears and Chief Executive Officer Robert Bezanson. Bezanson told CoxHealth employees in a memo on Thursday that he is a subject of the investigation so they wouldn't hear it first from "some other source."

   Two former longtime employees, Roger Cochran and Dennis Morris, filed the lawsuit.  They
claim they were fired because they are whistleblowers who told federal investigators about the Medicare billing practices that are under investigation.  CoxHealth says they were let go because of misconduct and harassment.  CoxHealth also says
it will respond in full to the federal allegations at the appropriate time,
which will be in court. An attorney for Cochran and Morris opposes the delay in the discovery process for the civil lawsuit because he believes the delay might result in the destruction of evidence that would help his clients' case.