Tenet under investigation by Florida Medicaid

NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Tenet Healthcare Corp. <THC.N> said on Friday it is under investigation by Florida's Medicaid program, adding to a raft of legal and regulatory woes for the No. 2 U.S. hospital operator.

Shares of the company, which disclosed the investigation in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission one day after reporting a second-quarter loss, fell about 4 percent in trading before the market opened.

Tenet said the Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in June issued a subpoena seeking employee personnel records and contracts with physicians, therapists and management companies, including loan agreements and purchase and sale agreements.

Neither a Florida Department of Health spokeswoman nor representatives of Tenet, which is based in Santa Barbara, California, were not immediately available on Friday morning.

Shares of Tenet were trading at $14 on Instinet, down from Thursday's $14.57 closing price on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Florida issue is the latest in a series of missteps that have sent Tenet's stock plunging more than 70 percent since October.

The company on Wednesday agreed to pay $54 million in a settlement with the federal government and California over an investigation of two doctors accused of performing hundreds of unnecessary heart procedures at a Tenet hospital in Northern California. The issue first arose in late October, when the Department of Justice disclosed that it and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the doctors.

Tenet said in November that it met with the SEC about whether it overcharged the federal Medicare program when billing for the sickest and most expensive patients. The Department of Justice in January subpoenaed documents on such "outlier" payments. Both the SEC and the Justice department are still investigating.

In May, former Chief Executive Jeffrey Barbakow resigned. In June, the company said earnings for the next five quarters would fall well short of analysts' expectations.

A San Diego federal grand jury in July returned an indictment accusing a Tenet hospital, Alvarado Hospital Medical Center, of illegal use of physician relocation agreements. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California has issued subpoenas about physician relocation fees at seven Southern California hospitals owned by Tenet.

Tenet also lists a handful of other cases in the "legal proceedings" section of its quarterly filing.