an additional $1.2 billion in debt, for a total $5 billion deal. After HCA declined the offer, the bid was withdrawn. In 1994, Columbia Hospital Corporation merged with HCA, "forming the single largest for-profit health care company in the country." Scott became CEO of Columbia/HCA. According to The New York Times, "[in] less than a decade, Mr. Scott had built a company he founded with two small hospitals in El Paso into the world's largest health care company – a $20 billion giant with about 350 hospitals, 550 home health care offices and scores of other medical businesses in 38 states." Fraud investigation and settlement On March 19, 1997, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company. Eight days after the initial raid, Scott signed his last SEC report as a hospital executive. Four months later, the board of directors pressured him to resign as chairman and CEO. He was succeeded by Thomas F. Frist Jr. Scott was paid $9.88 million in a settlement, and left owning 10 million shares of stock then worth more than $350 million. The directors had been warned in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that incentives Columbia/HCA offered doctors could run afoul of a federal anti-kickback law passed in order to limit or eliminate instances of conflicts of interest in Medicare and Medicaid. During Scott's 2000 deposition, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times. In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and agreed to a $600+ million fine in what was at the time the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Columbia/HCA admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space. It also admitted to fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. It filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, it gave doctors "loans" never intending to