Last year, there were talks about cutting the budget of Medicare further down as our political leaders weigh its impact in modern day society. We are all against cutting down on the Medicare budget because it’s one of the basic social health services that we are all entitled to.
It is the federal government’s responsibility to provide the country with much needed social services. Social services cater to the basic needs of everyone, especially those who are having financial problems.
Without any health care services, a lot of our fellow citizens will suffer because not everybody can afford to be in a nice hospital. This goes to show that health care services are very important and if Medicare continues to be abused by the millions or billions of dollars every year, there is a threat of this social service to be pulled out.
Medicare fraud occurs when the service is charged or billed for procedures that were even done in the first place. Simply put, Medicare fraud is overbilling the social service.
Among the most popular is phantom billing. In phantom billing, charges are made for procedures, tests, and equipment that were never really made or ordered in the first place.
Code jamming and unbundling are more of the common Medicare fraud types being committed. When diagnosis codes are being faked to get coverage for what was never really done, it is what we call code jamming. Up coding on the other hand is faking codes and replacing them with higher costing codes to get extra coverage. Same thing with double billing, a service done is charged more than once.
With Medicare fraud, only those who committed the scam reap the benefits. We, the health care system and the government altogether lose whenever Medicare fraud is committed. These scammers are taking away and stealing money from the national fund which mostly comes from the taxpayers.
This is why we will all benefit from whistleblowers and honest practitioners. Most whistle blowers are concerned health care professionals who want to make sure everyone is just being fair.
As whistleblowers, we should keep ourselves updated with current Medicare news and types of Medicare fraud being committed. If you want to report Medicare fraud, you can log on to their official website. Other means of reporting fraud is through the Medicare fraud hotline.
Hash:Solomon Lowreoll-VA1fMez8DwMAyJiRnHYT
Tags: Health, insurance, legal, medicare fraud