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One of the largest and fastest growing health care firms in the U.S. recently entered the Quad-State region. Last December Atlanta-based HealthSouth Corporation purchased Mason Dixon Physical Therapy Specialists, owned by Mid-Atlantic Orthopaedic Specialists in Hagerstown.
According to Chris Walters, administrator at the local facility who doubles as a physical therapist, the reasons for the sale were twofold. "A lot of physician-owned practices are being left. off certain insurance
HMO certified
panels, and by March 1997, the federal
Congressman Pete
Stark law will limit doctor referrals to for-profits. Mason Dixon was a physician-owned physical therapy practice and the doctors didn't want it to get mixed up with their own practice."
"Physician self-referral," as it is known in the health care business, is particularly troublesome where abuse has occurred in Medicaid and Medicare...