Jon Ossoff

So how did it happen that repeatedly, as you heard from the medical experts, the underlying condition was treated with a course of treatment that was not appropriate for the underlying condition?

Thank you, Dr. Hearn.

OK. Please tell me more about the balance of responsibilities between LaSalle and the Federal Government.

What I am trying to understand, Dr. Smith, is this has been a bipartisan, 18-month, U.S. Senate investigation, and the bipartisan conclusions of our investigation are that women whose care you are responsible for were subjected to…

This investigation has been bipartisan from start to finish.

You were taken from her.

The data was warning you, but you were not looking at it, and a lot of people got hurt.

Do they accept the outside provider's recommendation without any review, without any question?

You began the review because they were concerning. They certainly were concerning.

So they are using their best judgment. What does that mean?

It is hard for me to think of anything worse, really, Dr. Smith, than the Federal Government subjecting incarcerated women to needless gynecological surgery.

Why were you not aware? Why were you not aware that one doctor was performing 9/10th of gynecological procedures?

It is the bipartisan finding of the Subcommittee that they were not appropriate.

Seven months away from your newborn daughter.

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) will come to order.

I know that the Office of the Inspector General is currently engaged in its own review of this matter.

How could a 3-day review have possibly been sufficient for LaSalle to draw any firm conclusions about what happened here?

That is a little bit different from what we heard from the company previously.

Our findings are deeply disturbing.

They do not exercise any discretion and they approve or refer 100 percent.

My question is why did your agency fail? How did you allow this to happen?

We found that the relevant provider had been sued by the Federal Government and the State government for excessive and unnecessary billing practices.

Did you maintain any process for detecting whether or not providers working for DHS, working for IHSC, were performing extraordinarily high numbers of certain procedures, which can be a classic signature, for example, of fraudulent billing?

The experience that Ms. Cisneros Preciado just related to us is by no means unique.

I have introduced the bipartisan Civil Rights Cold Case Records Investigations Support Act, and I would like your commitment to work with my office...