There is an article in The Week Magazine about medical professionals who scam the system. The Department of Justice reports that 243 people have been arrestedfor stealing $712 million from Medicare. Forty-six of the 243 were doctors, nurses, pharmacy owners or other medical professionals who billed the government for fraudulent therapy sessions or prescriptions.
I know that sounds terrible. They say fraud probably consumes ten percent of the total medicare budget of $500 billion annually. Well, put that way, it is terrible. But if only 46 medical professionals or even 243 medical related persons out of all the medical care related people in the US are scamming the system, well that's not so bad. How many doctors are there in the country? According to Dr. Google, in 2009 there were 970,000 physicians in the US. The number of nurses woud be much higher. I am guessing the number of pharmacists would be fewer.
Being a medical professional does not weed out bad people. But in spite of this latest information, I continue to believe most doctors and their staff are honest and hard working. I have personal experience with one such doctor...
The radiologist, Dr. My Hero, who saw my first post op visit xray, is the one who called me and aaid "Go immediately to the emergency room." We thought of him today because Dear Husband had an xray and picked up the report. It was Dr. "My Hero" whose name appeared on the report today. So in contrast to the medical professionals scamming the system, Dr. Hero returned a modest gift card I sent him for being so alert and diagnosing my pneumothorax. His note thanked me but said he was just doing is job and could not accept such a gift, however small.
What a difference! More doctors like him and fewer con artists!
I know that sounds terrible. They say fraud probably consumes ten percent of the total medicare budget of $500 billion annually. Well, put that way, it is terrible. But if only 46 medical professionals or even 243 medical related persons out of all the medical care related people in the US are scamming the system, well that's not so bad. How many doctors are there in the country? According to Dr. Google, in 2009 there were 970,000 physicians in the US. The number of nurses woud be much higher. I am guessing the number of pharmacists would be fewer.
Being a medical professional does not weed out bad people. But in spite of this latest information, I continue to believe most doctors and their staff are honest and hard working. I have personal experience with one such doctor...
The radiologist, Dr. My Hero, who saw my first post op visit xray, is the one who called me and aaid "Go immediately to the emergency room." We thought of him today because Dear Husband had an xray and picked up the report. It was Dr. "My Hero" whose name appeared on the report today. So in contrast to the medical professionals scamming the system, Dr. Hero returned a modest gift card I sent him for being so alert and diagnosing my pneumothorax. His note thanked me but said he was just doing is job and could not accept such a gift, however small.
What a difference! More doctors like him and fewer con artists!
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