Just last week, the Houston Chronicle reported that a doctor was "sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison for fraudulently billing Medicare for hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment and tests that patients didn't need or never received." The doctor submitted over $650,000 in claims between 2006 and 2010 for tests used to diagnosed vertigo and dizziness.
According to Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Suzanne Bradley, the scope of the fraud merited prison time for the physician. She goes on to say "this case was never about patient care it was about money and it was about greed."
Did you know?
Fraud is generally defined as knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme or artifice to defraud any health care benefit program or to obtain (by means of false or fraudulent pretenses representations, or promises) any of the money or property owned by, or under the custody or control of, any health care benefit program. (18 U.S.C. 1347). This definition is included in our Corporate and Compliance module. Our Corporate Compliance modules ensure all employees receive important training on topics such as:
- Medicare and Medicaid Fraud, Waste and Abuse (FWA)
- The False Claims Act
- The Stark Laws
- And more.
In case you missed it
We recently published an article discussing our updated Corporate Compliance and FWA Training modules. In that article, we mentioned we have added an alternate course titled "CMS Corporate Compliance." If you participate in Medicare Parts C or D you should complete this training. You can access this article by clicking on the link above.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about our Corporate Compliance and FWA training offerings. You can reach one of our professional consultants by email [email protected], or reach us by phone toll-free at 855-427-0427.