Submitted by testosteronepit on 01/09/2012 21:17 -0500
Corporate America
Demographics
FBI
Freedom of Information Act
Medicare
Reality
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
It’s the kind of Medicare fraud case that makes your skin crawl. But the FBI is finally getting serious. California Watch reported today that federal agents interviewed the patient who was at the core of an investigative report in mid December. The patient, a diabetic, who was treated for acute kidney failure in 2010 at the Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, CA, didn’t know that the hospital would bill Medicare for the treatment of a disease she’d never heard of: kwashiorkor.
The often fatal illness is caused by severe malnutrition. Its symptoms include a distended belly and stick-thin arms. It afflicts children during famines in Africa. The patient was overweight. But by mentioning kwashiorkor on its billing documents, according to California Watch, the hospital boosted its Medicare reimbursement from $4,708 to $11,463—a 143% jump in revenue.
The temptation was just too great. The hospital was bought in 2008 by Prime Healthcare Services, a chain based in Ontario that owns 14 hospitals
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/systemic-nature-medicare-fraud?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
| 