Hospital Audit Questions Hours

From the LA Times. Not exactly "non-urban", but I thought it interesting.

Two dozen physician contractors at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center billed for hundreds of hours this year that could not be accounted for, according to a new audit suggesting that fiscal mismanagement and possible fraud persist at the public hospital even as it struggles to reform.

In the emergency department, for instance, the six doctors working under contract billed for a combined 2,200 hours in April and May. Even after taking into account patient care, meetings and lectures, 39% of those hours could not be explained, according to a confidential report that Los Angeles County auditors sent Thursday to the Board of Supervisors.

The doctors collected a total of nearly $75,000 for those questionable billings