False Medical Claims

[michellelindvist]

The scams

Phantom treatments. Dishonest medical providers will bill health insurers for expensive treatments, tests or equipment you never received - and for illnesses or injuries you don't even have.

Double billing. Unethical providers may double- or triple-bill health insurers for the same treatments, hoping the insurer won't discover the overruns in the big stack of bills.

Shoddy care. You might receive shoddy or substandard treatment for real and urgent medical problems. One eye doctor shined pen lights into patients' eyes and said he'd performed cataract surgery. Surgeons have used defective pacemakers and catheters during heart surgeries, which have killed patients or required more surgeries to correct the problems.

Unneeded care. You might receive dangerous and even life-threatening treatment you don't need. One surgeon performed heart surgery on patients who didn't need it.

Bogus insurers. Insurance agents or brokers sell you low-cost health coverage from fake insurance companies. Then they take your premiums and disappear. You're left without vital health coverage, and don't even know it until you make a claim.

Identity theft. Cheaters steal your medical ID number, then use it to bill health programs tens of thousands of dollars for phantom treatment. Crooks steal your health info from dumpsters behind medical clinics, break into doctor offices and steal files, and hack into computer databases containing your records.

Rolling labs. Mobile diagnostic labs give needless or fake tests or physical exams to consumers, then bill health insurers for expensive procedures.

Runners. A person hired by a medical provider to drum up business trolls through neighborhoods, often low-income areas, enticing people to come to a clinic for tests. These runners will even round up children for unneeded tests and procedures.