Sunrise Hospital Vegas

This section provides information on lawsuits, settlements and other litigation against Sunrise Hospital and HCA Healthcare. HCA is the corporate owner of Sunrise Hospital.

There have been many lawsuits and settlements against them for millions and billions of dollars. Two of lawsuits brought by patients and their families are presented in our section of Patient Stories as Patient-2 and Patient-3.

The largest settlement (discussed in the public domain) was $1.8 billion in an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. There are potentially many more settlements that are confidential.

In 2022, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, called for an investigation of HCA Healthcare for possible Medicare fraud. The article said:

HCA's profits were almost $7 billion in 2021, up nearly 100 percent in one year.

HCA has a negative history of health care fraud settlements with both federal and state authorities. This includes a settlement for $1.7 billion in the early 2000s that resolved multiple criminal counts and civil fraud allegations -- at the time, the largest health care fraud in U.S. history -- as well as other health care fraud settlements involving HCA in subsequent years.

Another article about this potential $1.8 billion of excess Medicare payments says:

Allegations against HCA Healthcare of improper emergency department admissions practices have caught the attention of a key lawmaker, who is now calling on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to open an investigation.

Tuesday, Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight, penned a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra asking for his agency’s help to settle “disturbing questions about HCA’s corporate policies and practices.”

The congressman’s letter largely leaned on allegations by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which released a report indicating that the hospital chain may have collected $1.8 billion in excess Medicare payments since 2008 thanks to medically unnecessary emergency department admissions.

In 2012, as the result of another investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, HCA paid $16.5 million to settle false claims act allegations regarding one of their hospitals in Tennessee. As alleged in the settlement agreement, HCA entered into a series of financial transactions with a physician group, through which it provided financial benefits intended to induce the physician members to refer patients to HCA facilities.

In 2018, a physician filed a whistleblower lawsuit accusing HCA of having a defacto quote system. He said supervisors hounded him with warnings and even threatened his job unless he started admitting more patients to meet his targets. Attorneys used Medicare data to show HCA hospitals nationwide are increasingly admitting patients for low-level maladies like nausea and back pain while non-HCA hospitals are going the opposite direction.

In recent news (on July 25, 2025), HCA Healthcare agreed to a multi-state settlement over allegations it illegally required entry-level nurses to repay training costs. These repayment arrangements, known as TRAPs (training repayment agreement provisions), violated state and federal laws. Under this program, nurses who left before two years of employment were billed for a prorated portion of the program cost, often sent to collections if unpaid. TRAPs are considered a form of employer-driven debt that can restrict job mobility and saddle healthcare workers with expected financial burdens.

We will add information about new lawsuits and legal matters for Sunrise Hospital and HCA Healthcare as it becomes available.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) released a comprehensive report about HCA Healthcare in 2022, titled "HCA: Higher Healthcare Costs of America."

Their report about HCA Healthcare says "new research indicates American's largest for-profit hospital system may be gaming the Medicare system and driving up healthcare costs for patients and citizens."

Here are some highlights from the report:

HCA's hospital markups are in general more than twice the national average, and many HCA hospitals have markups as high as 12 or 13 times the costs of care -- or even higher.

At the same time, staffing levels in HCA's hospitals lag the national average by about 30%, and the company pays tens of thousands of its employees poverty wages.

Based on the new research in this report, these high profits and payments to investors may originate in part from Medicare fraud. HCA routinely admits patients for inpatient hospital stays apparently regardless of medical need.

HCA is the largest health system in the U.S. and one of the wealthiest health systems in the world, with a market capitalization of $78.1 billion as of November 1, 2021.

This analysis indicates that HCA's practice of overadmitting patients may have brought the company nearly $2 billion in excess Medicare payments since 2008.

These allegations hold particular weight given HCA Healthcare's history of Medicare fraud.

HCA was the subject of the largest Medicare fraud settlement in U.S. history in the early 2000s when the company agreed to pay $1.7 billion.

According to the report, HCA fraud investigations and settlements date back to the 1990s and demonstrate that HCA has a history of engaging in alleged fraud to maximize profits and that federal and state governments and other stakeholders must take steps to increase scrutiny on for-profit healthcare corporations like HCA.

Over the past two decades, HCA and its affiliated entities have had at least nine settlements to resolve fraud allegations with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The facts and allegations, together with the data analysis summarized in the report.present a strong case that HCA is engaged in practices that maximize profits at the expense of patient care, working conditions, and responsible corporate behavior.

Source: HCA: Higher Healthcare Costs of America, by SEIU, published in 2022. Read the Executive Summary, and read the Full Report.