As a medical professional, you likely worry about patients falling for lies and overpaying for services.
If you are facing accusations of healthcare fraud, knowing the common signs of a scam can help you defend yourself.
Signs
According to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, a relatively tiny amount of healthcare providers perpetrate many schemes. This does not prevent these scams from being devastating for others, including draining the finances of unsuspecting patients.
In many circumstances, they include billing for services that were never performed and expensive procedures that the patient never needed. Scammers use personal information in order to appear genuine, which also makes the fraud harder to catch.
Common issues
When a doctor performs unnecessary procedures in order to drive up a patient’s bill, it can have a negative effect on the person’s health records. They could mistakenly become uninsurable due to this past history, or even have to deal with a false profile created in order to obtain medical goods. These procedures can also be life-threatening for anyone who undergoes them, since many health risks come along with invasive surgeries that are not needed in the first place.
Other problems
No doctor should accept kickbacks for referrals. In addition, unbundling the individual prices of a procedure in order to charge more for the same surgery is another sneaky way to keep patients from knowing they are overpaying.
Many people may not realize that it is not standard procedure to do this, since they rely on their doctor’s advice and medical knowledge. Being implicated in fraud can be a serious matter, but these accusations are not always true.
