If you keep your eyes open, only a few days or weeks will go by without you seeing a story about doctors and co-conspirators defrauding their patients and the healthcare system as a whole. Recently, there was another large fraud ring discovered in New Jersey. Astonishingly, the ring was run by a man who had been jailed in the 1990’s for running a similar scheme in which he gave kickbacks to doctors for sending their patients to his laboratories. He went to prison after pleading guilty to Medicare fraud involving millions of dollars of unnecessary tests. Prison certainly was no deterrent to this man who, after his release, set up medical imaging centers and paid doctors kickbacks to send their patients to his centers for imaging studies, many of which they did not need. If anything, his latest operation was larger and more profitable than his earlier fraud.
By now you should be asking yourself how can a man like this perform unnecessary tests and imaging studies valued in the millions of dollars? The answer is that he can be successful only if doctors are willing to violate their oaths, accept his bribes and send their patients for tests or imaging that they do not need or that could be done more cheaply at another facility. These doctors malpractice when they accept bribes to send their patients for tests or images they do not need and expose them to the risks of those tests or studies.
As a society, we rightly value the physician who cares for us and does his or her best to keep us healthy. Unfortunately, the good reputation of the medical profession as a whole serves to blind us to the fact that some physicians are in it only for themselves. We patients are nothing more to these people than the means by which they take home large amounts of money. It does not matter to these corrupt physicians that we do not need the test or the medical imaging study they order for us, if they can make some additional money under the table in addition to the money they make from ordering and interpreting the test in the first place. What is scary is that the news stories we see are likely only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more physicians participating in frauds on their patients and on the system who have not yet been discovered. It would be foolish indeed to believe that we have found them all. These fraudsters do not deserve the licenses our states give them which allow them to practice medicine. They do not deserve the large houses and fancy cars that they have as a direct result of the money they steal from each of us and from the system as a whole. They do not deserve our respect and admiration.
Remember, you are a customer of the medical profession. Be alert. Be vigilant. Ask questions and be informed. If you do these things, you will reduce the risk that you will be a victim of one of these faithless physicians.
