Nurse accused of taking part in kickback ring

By The Associated Press

A federal grand jury indicted a nurse on numerous charges accusing him of paying kickbacks so a nurse at Baptist Hospital Medical Center would buy goods from a medical-supply business, prosecutors said Thursday.

Prosecutors said Geffrey Alan Yielding, 42, of Jacksonville faces 18 counts of violating a federal kickback statute, 27 counts of wire fraud and one count of falsifying documents.

A statement by U.S. Attorney Jane Duke said Yielding purportedly paid Jody Wall, a charge nurse at Baptist Hospital Medical Center in North Little Rock, about $47,000 to purchase goods that were reimbursable under a federal health-care program.

The grand jury said evidence showed that Yielding's wife, now deceased, was the owner of a medical supply distributorship and received commission payments for the sales. The grand jury said Yielding also made a fake promissory note to make it appear the kickbacks were actually loans to Wall.

Duke said the investigation that implicated Yielding came from another case involving Searcy neurosurgeon Patrick Chan. Chan, 43, pleaded guilty in January to bribery for demanding kickbacks for using certain medical equipment in his practice. A judge gave Chan three years' probation and ordered him to return to Canada, where he had citizenship.

Mark Lowman, a spokesman for Baptist Health, said Yielding was not an employee at the hospital. Lowman said Wall no longer works at the hospital.

"As a matter of routine audits, we discovered significant discrepancies in supplies and inventory," Lowman said Thursday. "At that point, we cooperated with law enforcement."