Rick Scott and his role in Columbia/HCA scandal

As he meets Republicans around Florida, Rick Scott, the new front-runner in the Florida governor's race, has been greeted with applause -- and with blunt questions about his past.

At a recent GOP breakfast in Tampa, Scott was confronted -- not for the first time -- about his role in the scandals at Columbia/HCA, the massive healthcare company that Scott ran for 10 years. Scott resigned in 1997 amid an FBI probe that ultimately led to the company paying a record $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud.

It's the paradox of Scott's upstart campaign: The novice candidate has touted his stature and experience as the get-things-done CEO of what was once the nation's largest for-profit healthcare company, while also trying to distance himself from Columbia/HCA's notorious legacy of fraud.

The strategy has worked so far. Thanks largely to a $16 million advertising blitz he financed himself, Scott -- who moved to Florida seven years ago -- now leads in the polls over fellow Republican Bill McCollum, the state attorney general and former congressman.

``As I have said repeatedly, Columbia/HCA made mistakes, and I take responsibility for what happened on my watch as CEO,'' Scott said in a written statement Friday. He has denied knowing frauds were taking place while he was there, and he was never charged with any crimes.

However, federal investigators found that Scott took part in business practices at Columbia/HCA that were later found to be illegal -- specifically, that Scott and other executives offered financial incentives to doctors in exchange for patient referrals, in violation of federal law, according to lawsuits the Justice Department filed against the company in 2001.

The doctor payments were among 10 different kinds of fraud identified by the Justice Department in its 10-year probe of the company, records show. Three years after Scott left Columbia/HCA, the company admitted wrongdoing, pleading guilty to 14 felonies -- most committed during Scott's tenure -- in addition to paying two sets of fines totaling $1.7 billion.

Scott declined interview requests from The Miami Herald, and though his campaign issued a statement, it did not respond to specific questions about his tenure at Columbia/HCA.

In his statement, Scott said: ``An army of federal investigators spent seven years examining every aspect of this case. If they found any merit in these allegations . . . they would have certainly charged me, or at the very least questioned me -- neither of which ever happened.''

On his campaign website, Scott said that he would have corrected any problems at the company ``immediately'' had he known about them. But a former company insider told The Miami Herald that he warned Scott in a meeting of ``significant problems'' at least six months before Scott's resignation, which came nine days after the FBI raided 33 Columbia hospitals and offices in six states.

The insider, attorney Jerre Frazier, who was brought in by a Columbia/HCA board member to root out the company's problems, said he did not believe Scott personally approved any illegal conduct. But, he said: ``Rick is a bright guy, and he picked up on what was happening.''

The Scott campaign dismissed Frazier as a ``disgruntled former employee.''

Whether or not Scott was aware of his company's questionable conduct, the breadth of the problems raises questions about Scott's leadership, management experts say.

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