Managed care comes in for joking reference; Triad saga continues.

Hey, managed care - you've arrived!

I don't mean that in the business sense, because most anyone who has scrutinized their health care benefits during open enrollment periods knows that already. I mean it in the way "arrived" is used in another big Southern California industry - entertainment.

That's because as far as I can tell, the very first managed care joke was broadcast on network television during the Jan. 9 episode of "Frasier."

Kelsey Grammer, portraying the title character, was attempting to get out of a date so he could pursue someone he thought was his true love. So he told his family to tell the date when she arrived he had gone to the hospital to visit a sick friend.

When Frasier arrived back at his apartment, his aborted date was still there. She had apparently been "filled in" rather vividly by his family about the reasons for his absence.

"They expect him to be out of the hospital tomorrow," Frasier said.

"From a heart transplant?" she asked, incredulously.

"He's in an HMO," he archly replied.

I thought it was funny, but somehow I get the feeling execs at Blue Cross of California, Health Net, FHP, PacifiCare and other image-conscious HMOs did not laugh particularly hard.

Settling in stages: The saga of Encino-based Triad Healthcare Inc., which unfolded in phases, is being settled that way as well.

New York brokerage firm Goldman Sachs & Co. is in settlement talks with the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development - a state agency that oversees the operation of hospitals - for its role in arranging financing for Triad to purchase West Valley Hospital Medical Center and Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center in the San Fernando Valley in 1991.

Cal-Mortgage, an OSHPD affiliate that specializes in financing hospital purchases, had arranged $167.4 million in bond-backed financing for Triad to purchase the hospitals. Triad defaulted on the bonds in mid-1993, then filed for bankruptcy in February 1994.

OSHPD sued Goldman Sachs - which had brokered the deal - in February 1995, alleging conflict of interest. It also charged that Goldman Sachs had conspired to vastly inflate the worth of the two hospitals, which were valued by a bankruptcy trustee at about $40 million - less than a quarter of their original purchase price.

Sacramento attorney Raymond Cadei, who represents OSHPD, said he was in "mediation sessions."

Cadei is a member of Diepenbrock Wulff Plant & Hannegan law firm.

OSHPD has also filed suit against Stuart Marylander, the former Triad CEO, accusing him of deliberately misleading OSHPD during negotiations for the financing. Cadei noted he had been in mediation sessions with Marylander's attorneys as well. Another defendant, Valuation Counselors Inc., has already settled for $1 million, he said.

It turned out that Goldman Sachs broker Vincent Forte, a member of the Cal-Mortgage loan-approval board, had advised Triad to apply for the financing, although he did not vote on the approval himself. Another member of the board had apparently been ordered by former OSHPD director Larry Meeks to censor her misgivings about the deal.

Triad, meanwhile, emerged from bankruptcy last April with new management, and has agreed to repay Cal-Mortgage in full, even though it was forced to close West Valley early last year. It is not named in any litigation.

Southern strategy: Santa Monica-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., continuing to beef up its hospital network in Florida, has signed a letter of intent to acquire 381-bed Hialeah Hospital of Hialeah. Final terms are expected to be reached with 60 days. It will be the seventh hospital and 45 health care facility Tenet operates in Southern Florida.