Prime Healthcare, facing allegations in CA, stakes a claim in TX

A California hospital company facing allegations it inflated disease diagnoses to bill Medicare for more expensive conditions—including a form of Third World malnutrition rarely found in the U.S.—is edging into Texas.Despite more than a year of bad press and an apparent FBI inquiry, Prime Healthcare Services, which owns and operates more than a dozen hospitals, most of them in California, acquired ownership of South Texas' 112-bed Harlingen Medical Center in December, then bought Pampa Regional Medical Center, a 115-bed hospital in the Panhandle, this month.