Okay, in the midst of all the fraud and abuse rhetoric, are we asking the right questions? Catching a crook is one thing, preventing the crime in the first place better. You would think that in this day and age it would be possible to link databases and to check the Medicare population for such basic things as … being alive.
The immense bureaucracy, the pay and pursue claim policy and the lack of concurrent review all contribute to fraud and abuse on large and small scales involving both providers and patients.
Welcome to the world of single payer public health care systems.
In the murky annals of Chicago’s political history, it wasn’t unusual for the dead to vote — sometimes more than once.
Now the city’s deceased have pulled off another neat trick, the feds say.
They’ve received psychotherapy at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.
According to a federal indictment filed late Thursday, Evanston psychotherapist Jonathan A. Levy, 44, and his employee, Janice Nakao, 59, bilked taxpayers out of $500,000 by filing false Medicare claims, including billing for the treatment of long-dead patients.
via Dead ‘patients’ got psychotherapy in $500,000 Medicare scam, feds say | Chicago.
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