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| Rebecca Fierle improperly billed AdventHealth nearly $4 million over a
decade for services she provided to their patients, according to an
investigation. Click to Watch Video |
AdventHealth
will turn over more records regarding its financial relationship with
Rebecca Fierle, the former Orlando guardian who was paid nearly $4
million by the hospital company over a decade to provide services to vulnerable patients, according to its attorney.
At
a Thursday hearing in the Orange County Courthouse, AdventHealth
attorney Chuck Ingram said the hospital system agreed to produce emails
between Fierle or her employees at Geriatric Management and certain
hospital employees regarding the care of two incapacitated patients.
The patients were Fierle’s wards until she resigned as a guardian after one of her clients, 75-year-old Steven Stryker,
died at a Tampa hospital. Staff were unable to perform life-saving
measures due to a “do not resuscitate” order she filed against Stryker’s wishes and refused to remove.
David
A. Yergey III, a lawyer representing the two patients’ new guardian,
asked Circuit Judge Janet C. Thorpe to compel AdventHealth and Fierle to
produce documents regarding their multimillion-dollar relationship,
which industry experts have described as virtually unheard of.
An
investigation by the office of Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond
found AdventHealth paid the embattled guardian at least $3.7 million
over a decade for services she provided to 682 patients.
Close
to a third of those patients were placed under guardianship, but for
the majority, Fierle acted as a durable power of attorney, health care
surrogate or health care proxy without court oversight and under
questionable legal authority, the comptroller’s review found.
Third-party
financial arrangements like the one between the guardian and
AdventHealth are not allowed under Florida law without court approval. A
second probe
also found Fierle was profiting from her work by billing an Altamonte
Springs assisted living facility almost $100,000 to handle the affairs
of their vulnerable patients while pocketing refunds the facility issued
to her incapacitated clients.
Thorpe previously ordered the hospital company to produce a trove of billings from
Fierle’s companies, and Ingram said at the hearing AdventHealth would
voluntarily provide Yergey with all invoices related to the two
incapacitated patients whose new guardian he represents.
Fierle is under criminal investigation, but she is not currently facing any charges.
Full Article & Source:
AdventHealth to turn over more records regarding relationship with ex-guardian Rebecca Fierle
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