Tenet Healthcare Corporation NYSE: THC is a holding company that owns and operates hospitals in the United States. The second-largest hospital chain, it is based in Dallas, Texas.

On October 12, 2005, CNN reported that the Louisiana attorney general is investigating the possibility that mercy killings of critically ill patients by staff medical professionals at Memorial Medical Center, New Orleans occurred during Hurricane Katrina. On September 13, Tenet issued a statement: "No patients drowned nor did any die as a result of lack of food or drinking water." (CNN) (BusinessWire)

Apparently, 24 of the patients were part of a Hospice unit run by LifeCare, a company that was renting the seventh floor at Memorial hospital. The staff of LifeCare abandoned their stations leaving Tenet to care for the Hospice patients. During this period, as expected, 24 of the Hospice patients passed on. Tenet workers placed these corpses (numbering in the 20-30 range) in the chapel (since the morgue was now full) along with all their records for subsequent pickup once things started to return to normal in New Orleans.

Bloomberg reported on June 30, 2006 that Tenet has agreed to pay $725 million in cash and give up $175 million in fees to resolve claims it defrauded the federal government for its over-billing of medicare claims during six years of the 1990s. To finance the settlement, it plans to sell 11 hospitals in four states.