A recent settlement between environmental advocates and developers over wetlands in northern Collier County is being called a win-win by both groups. But as WGCU’s John Davis reports, the fight isn’t over.

Republican Gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott of Naples made a campaign stop in Fort Myers on Monday.  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

U.S. Congressman Connie Mack met with Emergency Operations officials and a boom manufacturer in Bonita Springs Wednesday.  The Fort Myers Republican reiterated his anger about the federal response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf.  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

The South Florida Water Management District recently airlifted 60 tons of aquatic vegetation into wetlands south of Lake Okeechobee.  As WGCU’s John Davis reports, the effort is a key component to Everglades Restoration.

Thousands of people in Florida and throughout the world drew a literal “line in the sand” Saturday afternoon against off-shore drilling and showing support for clean and renewable energy.  WGCU’s John Davis attended a “Hands Across the Sand” demonstration in Naples and has this report.

Local law enforcement officials are ramping up efforts to stop impaired boaters this weekend as part of a national effort called “Operation Dry Water.”  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

Local volunteers with the non-profit Matter of Trust are preparing to protect Southwest Florida’s coastline from the BP oil spill by making their own booms from natural materials.  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

A light oil sheen from the BP spill is now 170 miles from Lee and Collier county shorelines.  Meanwhile, local emergency managers have revised their boom deployment strategy to protect the coastline.  WGCU’s John Davis has more.

Two
whistleblowers say the new front-runner in the Republican race for
governor is lying when he says he did not know about fraud in his
former company, the Columbia/HCA hospital chain.

In July 1997, FBI agents raided Columbia/HCA accounting offices in
seven states, including Florida. Within days, Columbia’s board of
directors ousted Scott, but gave him a nearly $10 million severance
package, including stock shares worth $300 million and a $1 million a
year consulting contract.

The company wound up paying more than $1.7 billion for defrauding the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Scott says he didn’t know about his company’s fraudulent billing practices and if he had, he’d have fired those responsible.

But company whistleblower John Schilling of Naples says Scott must be lying.

“He’s pulling the wool over your eyes if he says that he wasn’t
aware of this and he would have fired anybody if he would have been
aware of it. I think it’s a bunch of malarkey,” Schilling said.

Schilling worked for Columbia as a Medicare reimbursement supervisor
in Fort Myers. His whistleblower case, along with others, helped put an
end to the fraud and hold the company accountable.

Schilling first discovered the company’s fraudulent billing
practices in 1993 after a call from a Medicare auditor about a cost
reporting issue with Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte.

Schilling describes a meeting he had with Columbia administrators,
during which he was instructed to “throw federal auditors off the
track.” That included offering one of the auditors a job.

“They didn’t use the word conspire, but it was basically a
conspiracy of, let’s think of some ideas and have John do this,” he
said.

“Well, at the end of that to-do list, Jay Jarrell, the CFO said,
‘Well, if all else fails, let’s just offer the Medicare auditor a job
with the company.’ And it was at that point, that I really started to
feel sick to my stomach that, this is not right.

“You don’t want to offer a Medicare auditor a job. If this was a mistake, why are we trying to hide this?” he said.

Schilling left the company and filed a lawsuit on behalf of the
federal government. Then Columbia began courting Schilling to come
back. At this time, the FBI was already on the case – and Schilling
says his life began to resemble a John Grisham novel.

“The FBI saw that it was a good opportunity for me to get back into
the organization and kind of be their eyes and ears,” Schilling said.

He said the FBI wanted help with their search warrants and “just to
kind of be that fly on the wall or spy within the organization,” he
said.

“I worked my way back into the company. They had no idea I was a government informant,” he said.

Schilling’s case was merged with that of another whistleblower in Montana: former HCA hospital CFO Jim Alderson.

Alderson says he believes he was fired because of his refusal to
abide by accounting practices that maintained two separate sets of
books: one showing reimbursements submitted to Medicare, and another
secret book documenting fraudulent claims that would be rejected if
found by Medicare auditors.

The company maintained large reserve funds in case auditors ever
discovered the false claims and had to pay up. Alderson says the
practice was so widespread, that Scott had to know about it.

“These reserves represented anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of the bottom line of the company in its heyday,” Alderson said.

“It’s just totally unfeasible that a CEO making the kind of money he
was making, that you wouldn’t know where 30 percent of your bottom line
came from. How could you sit in a board room and say, ‘Gee, I wonder;
we had record profits this year. I wonder where they came from?’”

Alderson says fraud also helped Scott grow the company at such a rapid rate.

“It’s a house of cards. From what we found in our case was Medicare defrauding paid for the acquisitions,” he said.

“They charged the Medicare program interest when they’d buy these
other hospitals and that, in many cases, was not legal and that was a
major part of our case,” Alderson said.

One of four Columbia/HCA executives convicted in the case was Bob
Whiteside. He was later acquitted on appeal and says he still stands by
Scott, his former boss.

Whiteside wouldn’t consent to a recorded interview. He says the
billing practices didn’t start with Scott, but were adopted from one of
the other companies acquired by Columbia.

Whiteside says the illegal activity was widespread within the
healthcare industry, but since Columbia/HCA was the largest, the
government made an example of it.

Schilling agrees that the fraud didn’t start with Columbia, but says
Scott’s profit driven and cut-throat corporate culture encouraged the
practice to grow. Schilling says administrators who met profit goals
were rewarded with bonuses of 50 percent or more of their base salary.

“They took shortcuts, they did whatever it took to get to it because they were motivated by the money,” Schilling said.

“They had to meet certain profit margins and if they didn’t meet
them, I tell you what, I saw several CEOs of hospitals or CFOs that got
fired because they didn’t cut it,” he said.

Scott was never charged and says he was never questioned in the
case. After leaving Columbia, he invested in a television network which
became Discovery Health. He also co-founded Solantic Corporation; a
chain of urgent care centers in Northeast Florida.

At an event in Tampa Friday, Scott characterized his former company's actions as a mistake.

"Sometimes, people make mistakes. And when you're CEO, you take
responsibility - which I do - but you talk about the things you do
well, which I do, and the things you've got to work on," Scott said.

"We drove down the cost of health care, we improved outcomes, we
improved patient satisfaction. Could we have hired more internal
auditors? You'd better believe it.

"But that's the difference. In business, if something goes wrong,
you're held accountable. In government - think about all the things
that've gone wrong. Have you seen politicians take responsibility? They
don't. So what you want in a leader is you want someone who learns, and
take those learnings, and applies it to any issue and takes
responsibility," Scott said.

Members of the Lee Elder Abuse Prevention Partnership recognized World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Tuesday at Centennial Park in Fort Myers. WGCU’s John Davis reports.