Jurors find TX hospital chain owner guilty on all 15 counts

Dr. Tariq Mahmood did not wield a "Charles Manson-like" power over employees, forcing them to alter Medicare billing codes for his Texas hospitals, his defense lawyer told jurors in the closing argument of his federal fraud trial. The Dallas businessman was merely a boss making "suggestions" to his billing coders, said attorney Michael Khouri. The staffers were the ones who made the "final decision'' to change underlying diagnosis codes in claims for government reimbursements. Just before jurors began their deliberations around noon, Khouri spent 45 minutes attacking prosecutors' case that Mahmood orchestrated a scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting more than $1.1 million in bogus billing claims.