Consumer Law

Let's tackle fraudulent billing first

By Justinian Lane

If we?re looking for ways to save money in the medical system, let?s tackle fraudulent billing practices like this first:

Dr. Roland Borrasi chuckled as he told three doctors how he used kickbacks and cash bribes to shuttle unsuspecting nursing home residents into Chicago-area hospitals and psychiatric wards.

"Basically, I have a commodity; my commodity is nursing home patients," Borrasi explained.

He didn't know it at the time, but federal agents were secretly recording that meeting.
. . . .

While taxpayers paid millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare bills, one Alzheimer's patient was given inappropriate brain radiation treatments, a Borrasi associate told federal agents. A second patient, a disoriented elderly woman, was sent to an acute psychiatric ward after she refused to eat in her nursing home dining hall, another medical professional told federal agents.

Source: Nursing homes: Vulnerable patients, taxpayer money caught in web of corruption - chicagotribune.com

It seems to me that we should weed out this sort of behavior before we start ?reforming? the justice system to make it harder for injured citizens to sue.

Full post as published by TortDeform.com on April 18, 2010 (boomark / email).