Report Links 'Dead Doctors' To Payments By Medicare!

Report Links 'Dead Doctors' To Payments By Medicare!

www.nytimes.com

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators said Tuesday that Medicare had paid tens of millions of dollars to suppliers improperly using identification numbers of doctors who died years ago.

The government has no reliable way to spot claims linked to dead doctors, many of whom are still listed as active Medicare providers though they died 10 or 15 years ago, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Absolutely Unreal...

Credit for this story goes to ATS member "TheLoony", who brought this to my attention.

So two things to be expected out of this monumental scam-A huge oversight commitee, and probably much more stringent guidelines for medicare claims in the future.

Scam-artists are absolutely shameless, and they end up hurting everyone with their nonsense...

“From 2000 to 2007, Medicare paid 478,500 claims containing identification numbers that were assigned to deceased physicians,” the subcommittee said in a new report. “The total amount paid for these claims is estimated to be between $60 million and $92 million. These claims contained identification numbers for an estimated 16,548 to 18,240 deceased physicians.”

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Thanks, DD, for getting this up. I would probably crash my computer if I tried to post a topic, being as I have little luck with anything computer related.

I thought this was notable:

“When Medicare is paying claims and the doctor has been dead for 10 or 15 years, you know there is a serious problem.”

Really? A "serious problem", eh?

So, the rich get richer and the poor can't even afford to go to the doctor. Great system we have here.

Not even mildly surprising. I have a deep mistrust of the entire medical industry from top to bottom, mostly formed over money. When my son was born 2 years ago, thank God I had good insurance. Of course they have brokered deals between hospitals and the insurance companies to lower the prices for services and supplies to "reasonable" levels vs what the patient would pay if they had no insurance. When I started getting the statements from my insurance company I was stunned. Without insurance I would have been on the hook for crap like $10 a pill acetaminaphine for my wife after the delivery, $350 for the 7 foot long little rubber tube that went from her arm to her IV machine, $185 one time vitamin K eye drops for my son's eyes immediately following his birth, I could list probably 3 dozen mind boggling charges I'd have been forced to pay... FYI, the final difference between what I'd have paid and what the insurance company actually paid: $37,000 vs about $10,000. (It was an emergency C-Section, BTW) Absolute lunacy.

My dad had a bypass surgery done in December. He also has pretty decent insurance since he is a retired state employee. He made sure to pay every "Patient's responsibillity" bill, after reviewing it, and every co-pay immediately upon receipt to ensure he & my mom didn't suddenly get hit with one of those "Payment 30 Days Late" threatening letters that are oh-so beneficial to a post-op patient's recovery process. They also were smart enough to keep a meticulous file of every insurance statement and bill they got. He was telling me that last month he got a collection letter from the hospital demanding something in the neighborhood of $5,000. He immediately called the billing department and demanded they fax him a detailed bill. He compared it with his insurance statements and discovered that they had recieved payments for everything they were billing him for from the insurance company. He called the billing administrator back and was pretty fired up, she apologized and blamed "computer error" and assured him the bill should be ignored and they faxed him a letter saying as much upon his insistance. That, to me, is complete and utter illegal bullcrap which should be prosecuted. Blaming computer error is a cop-out. The medical field billing offices do this very intentionally in hopes of hitting the jackpot with some elderly person who automatically pays every bill they get.

Truth be told, this is very much part of the reason I am so anti-illegal immigrant. This became an epidemic of "billing mistakes" right about the time the government mandated that all illegals had to recieve whatever medical treatment they needed, even with the hospitals knowing full well they'd never see a dime of payment for the service. Illegals will slip across the border when they have a serious illness or injury, go to the closest bordertown hospital, get treated, and then go back across to home. The medical field, in turn, has attempted to recoup these losses through overcharges and billing "mistakes." You can bet your ass that while Sancho may not be paying his doctor's bill, someone else under that doctor's care will pay it somehow, someway.