SPRINGFIELD --Federal prosecutors say CoxHealth has mischaracterized and overstated its cooperation in an ongoing federal investigation of the hospital's Medicare billing practices.  The investigation could lead to criminal charges against current and former administrators of the health care company.

   The prosecutors’ statements are in the latest set of documents in a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court.  Roger Cochran and Dennis Morris, former employees of CoxHealth, sued for damages because they said they were wrongfully terminated for being whistle blowers.  They say Cox fired them because they cooperated with the federal criminal investigation.  Cox administrators say they were fired because they didn’t do their jobs well.

  Prosecutors and CoxHealth want a judge to delay discovery – pre-trial interviews and subpoenas of documents – in the civil lawsuit because it might interfere with the criminal investigation.  Attorneys for the fired employees fear such a delay would hurt their case against the hospital.

   CoxHealth is the largest employer in the Springfield metropolitan area, with about 9,000 employees at its hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities.  In news releases and an open letter to the community, CoxHealth has said it's fully cooperated with every aspect of the criminal investigation, including self-reporting the results of its own internal investigation of the billing practices in question.  Some of the questions about the billing practices are about whether CoxHealth paid doctors for services they didn’t provide.

  Prosecutors say CoxHealth didn’t disclose potential problems with the billing practices until after it learned an investigation was underway.   According to the prosecutors’ filing, CoxHealth has not disclosed the results of its internal investigations to investigators.  That is important because prosecutors say they assured CoxHealth that the company itself would not be criminally prosecuted if it provided complete access to those results.  That guarantee would not have applied to current and former administrators.

   Finally, prosecutors say, CoxHealth should not claim it has cooperated fully in every facet when administrators and other employees have declined to be interviewed.  The court document specifically names CoxHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Bezanson as one who declined to be interviewed without being granted immunity that his statements would not be used against him.

   The prosecutors’ filing goes on to say that other employees, in addition to the CEO, have declined to be interviewed by government investigators.  In summary, the government says Cox would be well served to refrain from overstating its cooperation publicly. 

  On Monday, Laurie Cunningham, vice president of support services, said CoxHealth would not respond to the filings but said a legal response would be filed the next day.  On Tuesday, however, Cunningham said that lawyers had decided not to file that response.

   “After considerable review of the pleadings, our legal counsel determined that our efforts to correct the government’s misrepresentations would not be central to the issue before the court, which is whether or not a stay should be issued in the Cochran-Morris civil case,” said Cunningham in an e-mail message.  “We may very well take steps to rebut the government’s claims in some type of communication to our employees, medical staff and volunteers at some point in the future.  With all due respect to the public’s interests here, we simply don’t intend to try our case in the press.”

   Federal prosecutors believe CoxHealth will eventually cooperate more fully, according to their pleadings in the civil case.  They think CoxHealth will disclose the results of its internal investigations because, if it doesn’t, that would break the agreement with prosecutors, and allow the government to charge CoxHealth as a company if investigators believe laws were broken.