South Florida: America’s Medicare Fraud Capital It really should be no surprise to anyone. While entitlement spending spirals out of control and more and more people lose health insurance as they lose their jobs, our little corner of the country has found the people to capitalize on all of it. It seems that every month we hear about a new group of doctors in South Florida being charged with Medicare Fraud, and anyone who has lived here long enough barely bats an eyelash. Because lord knows if there’s two things this region is known for, it’s old people and fraud. THE “GROUND ZERO†OF SCAMS A recent USA Today article called Miami the “ground zero†of scams in this country, as most scams that get picked up here quickly seem to pop up elsewhere around the country within months. So glad we can be a trendsetter in that arena. And while Miami’s elderly population is not what it may have been, say, 20 years ago, it’s not too tough for a crooked doctor (or someone posing as one) to make the short drive up I-95 to that honeypot of old folks, Palm Beach County. I’m just surprised it took as long as it did for “Medicare Fraud†and “South Florida†to become as synonymous as it has.  And though nobody would argue that prescribing unnecessary HIV treatments, or even worse treatments that are never even administered, is nothing short of a crime against humanity, maybe we should look at why this kind of fraud is so easy. It’s not just because the crooks are preying on people who are arguably more vulnerable to such scams, but rather because they know that in this country, if a doctor says to buy something, anyone with insurance will buy it. IT’S NOT MY MONEY….. It’s amazing how when you have health insurance, the thought of getting a $5000 MRI to see why your hip hurts is just being precautions. Pay for that MRI, and all of a sudden you can live with a little joint pain. Same with  getting second opinions from expensive “specialists,†or getting every blood test on Earth to see why you’ve been coughing for the last 2 months. When the rest of the folks paying through the nose for health insurance are footing the bill, who cares? We have become a nation of flamboyant college kids flaunting their mommy and daddy’s AMEX when it comes to health care. We want the best, cost be damned, because, hey, it’s not our money. And this, folks, is why I believe health care has gotten prohibitively expensive: We abuse it. We abuse it and scam artists see this and realize that we’ll agree to pretty much any treatment on Earth, provided we don’t have to pay. So they prescribe unnecessary things, we sign off on it, and the Medicare system suffers. THE IMMUNE SYSTEM IS PHENOMINALLY UNDERRATED  Perhaps if we started treating our insurance money like our real money, we’d stop getting $10,000 surgery for a chronic hangnail. Maybe we’d balk at getting X-rays after we tweak our ankles playing volleyball. And maybe we wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get every treatment and referral a doctor says is in our best interest, because, amazingly, the body often does a pretty good job of healing itself. Once we stop insisting on getting thorough treatment for every sniffle we have, the scam artists will stop seeing such a large opportunity, and maybe we’ll have a prayer of getting this health care mess figured out.
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7 Comments on"South Florida: America’s Medicare Fraud Capital"
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Doug says:
Isn’t a large part of the fraud happening in Miami involving doctors who file false claims for patient visits that never happened? What about that angle? I think some doctors even give away patient information to their doctor friends who file claims even when they’ve never seen you.
Posted on 04/30/2009 at 8:36 AM