Cheating Medicare: It’s Easy
A pregnant woman who gets an ultrasound exam — from an ear, nose and throat doctor. A forensic pathologist whose patients walked into his office, rather than being rolled in with toe tags. A dermatologist who conducted heart tests. A psychiatrist who performed M.R.I.’s. But none of the far-fetched procedures ever took place, according to federal prosecutors.
Full article on the gangsters who stole $35 million in a Medicare scheme.
While Medicare fraud will never be eliminated, there is a straightforward way to dramatically reduce it – immediately. And it would rely on Medicare beneficiaries themselves. Voucherization is the solution.
Roundly condemned by President Obama, voucherizing Medicare would instantaneously put every American senior on the beat against fraud. Imagine if the Social Security Administration added the value of each senior’s Medicare benefit to his Social Security deposit, instead of keeping those dollars out of seniors’ control and under the control of third-party contractors engaged by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Seniors would be free to decide how to spend their Medicare dollars. Most of them would spend some on premiums for low-cost health insurance that kicked in once they’d incurred a catastrophically expensive illness or accident. They’d keep the rest of the money to spend on predictable health expenses like tests, which appear to be the most common procedures associated with these scams.
A pregnant Medicare recipient should have been enough of a clue. I’d think the perpetrators of this fraud would at least put a little creativity into their fraud. A dermatologist should not be billing for a cardiac test. Why not bill it as treating melanoma?
Like taking candy from a baby.
This seems a little bit too easy… The big question: if gangesters stole millions before getting caught, how many others are doing it?
The gang…”billed Medicare for more than $100 million, and managed to collect $35 million over at least four years.”
Let’s see, that’s about 35 cents on the dollar, about the same rate Medicare pays doctors. At those rates, even Armenian gangsters will start opting out of Medicare!