ABSTRACT
We are family. HealthSouth’s former CEO (chief executive officer) Richard Scrushy’s band might even know the words to the song “We Are Family,” but that is another story.
All organizations start with an idea and HealthSouth was no different. It started with an idea, $70,000, a small office, a table, four chairs, and one telephone. Anthony Tanner, one of the original founders, described Richard Scrushy, a former physical therapist, as the ideas man who led HealthSouth from its humble beginnings in Little Rock, Arkansas, to one of the nation’s largest health care service providers of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging, and rehabilitation services (Castellano and Lightle 2005). After Medicare began in 1965 and paid generously for rehabilitation services, money poured into the health-care system and HealthSouth capitalized on these generous
Introduction .........................................................................................................315 In the Beginning .................................................................................................315 1996 to Mid-2002 ................................................................................................317 Mid-2002 to 2003 ................................................................................................319 Cooking with HealthSouth ............................................................................... 320 After the Whistle ................................................................................................ 326 How Scrushy Got Off ......................................................................................... 326 How the Family Did Not Get Off ..................................................................... 328 The Tone at the Top ............................................................................................ 329 Epilogue ................................................................................................................331 References ............................................................................................................ 332 Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 333
payments. Within two years of its 1984 founding, HealthSouth had proven to be a successful business model.
