Recovering the Money Lost to Health Care Fraud is an Important Issue
Last November, I wrote about the U.S. Justice Department's recovery of $3 Billion in fiscal year 2010 that had been originally lost to our government due to fraud. When you look at the government's recoveries, you soon see that much of the fraudulent activity against our government involves the health care system.
This morning, The Birmingham News had an interesting article concerning the penalties assessed for health care fraud over the last four years, just in North Alabama. It appears that over the last four years, the U.S. Attorney's office in North Alabama has recovered $48 Million dollars in penalties. This recovery is estimated to be only a small portion of the illegal fraud in our health care system locally.
Fraud and abuse in our health care system threaten the delivery of basic health services. Last week, Alabama's Medicaid Agency Director painted a grim picture of the agency due to budget issues. On a Federal level, we've all heard the near constant debate on Medicare's projected budgets.
During these difficult economic times when so many people are dealing with personal budget problems, it is good to see that our U.S. Attorney in North Alabama has taken an active role in pursuing some of the fraud in our system. These cases can be initiated by our U.S. Attorney or by private citizens under the False Claims Act. If we want to curb the cost of health care, the best place to start is with those who abuse the system by defrauding the government.
