Recent stories in the news seem to suggest that health care fraud is running rampant. We’ve got stories about Eric Leak‘s Medicaid agency, Nature’s Reflections, funneling money to pay athletes, a seizure of property in Greensboro for alleged Medicaid fraud, and, in Charlotte, a man was charged with Medicaid fraud and sentenced to three years under court supervision and ordered to pay $3,153,074. And these examples are local.
Health care fraud with even larger amounts of money at stake has been prosecuted in other states. A nonprofit up in NY is accused of defrauding the Medicaid system for over $27 million. Overall, the federal government opened 924 criminal health care fraud investigations last year.
What is going on? Are more people getting into the health care fraud business? Has the government become better at detecting possible health care fraud?
I believe that the answer is that the federal and state governments have determined that it “pays” high dividends to invest in health care fraud investigations. More and more money is being allocated to the fraud investigative divisions. More money, in turn, yields more health care fraud allegations…which yields more convictions….and more money to the government.
via Is Health Care Fraud on the Rise? Or Just the Accusations?? | Williams Mullen – JDSupra.