All blog posts are cross posted

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

One Way to Save Money on Health Care

From the Houston Chronicle:
Three plead guilty in Houston Medicare fraud case
by Mike Glenn
The owner and two employees of a Houston medical supply company pleaded guilty in federal court today for bilking the government out of almost $1 million in fraudulent claims.
Bassey Monday Idiong, 30, Linda Eteimo Ere Kendabie, 27, and Modupe Babanumi, 42, face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, authorities said.
Idiong was the owner of B.I. Medical Supply while Kendabie was an administrative assistant and Babanumi recruited patients for the company, said officials with the U.S. Justice Department.
According to federal authorities, the defendants billed Medicare $4,000 each for a collection of braces and other devices they referred to as “arthritis kits.” However, their patients received less-expensive products that were not medically necessary. In one case, a patient with only one leg received a kit that had two knee braces, authorities said.
The company submitted about $846,000 in fraudulent claims to Medicare, officials said.
I can't say much more about this, except to multiply this in your mind, by say ten, and you are still probably way under the total amount of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.  What do you think will happen with total healthcare?
 Read more here.

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