Special Report: Taking on the real Miami Vice: healthcare fraud

[Judi Lynn]

Special Report: Taking on the real Miami Vice: healthcare fraud
By Tom Brown

MIAMI | Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:12am EDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - If Peter Budetti gets his way, the criminals who gorge on the U.S. healthcare system, bilking the government out of billions of dollars a year, will soon be on a much leaner diet.

As Washington's point man on healthcare fraud, the 66-year-old Budetti knows there are no quick fixes to a mind-boggling mess that ranks as one of America's top crime problems. But he has been working to develop new technological tools and a comprehensive, long-term strategy to rein in fraud since his appointment as director of Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year.

Although fraudsters have had the run of the place for some two decades, life is about to get "an awful lot tougher" for them, Budetti told Reuters in a recent interview. He promised new measures to curb waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid, the massive federal programs that provide healthcare for America's elderly and poor, will soon pay big dividends.

~snip~
There are no official estimates for how much fraud costs but the National Healthcare Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA), a watchdog group, cites information from the FBI that anywhere between $70 billion and $234 billion is lost annually. That ranges between 3 percent and 10 percent of the $2.34 trillion Americans spent on healthcare in 2008.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/13/us-usa-healthcare-fraud-idUSTRE73C2HX20110413?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

[Angry Dragon]

1. Just talk to prick scott ....... he knows the system

[EC]

2. Instead of speaking with him

they better investigate him...I can't believe he isn't still bilking Medicare and Medicaid, so catch him again and throw his ass in jail. Just about 90% of what he is doing as Governor is positioning his assets to make himself rich, so I'm sure he's still cheating the system and is trying to pass laws to protect himself.