Medicare Fraud Hotline

What is Medicare fraud hotline?

The Medicare fraud hotline is used to report any suspicious cases of possible Medicare fraud. Generally speaking, Medicare fraud refers to companies or individuals who try to collect Medicare health care payments under false and illegal pretenses.

Although many means and schemes exist to do this, they all seek the same thing: get some of the huge Medicare payments doled out yearly in America. The crime has become so rampant due to a purposely designed feature of the program, which was originally set up as an “honor system of billing”.

What are the types of Medicare fraud?

Although Medicare fraud can appear in many forms almost every day, there are three major types of this crime:

• Phantom Billing: the provider bills Medicare for procedures which are either unnecessary or not performed at all.
• False Patient billing: often carried out in areas with large numbers of senior citizens, such as Florida, the patient himself may be duplicitous.
• Upcoding and upbilling: this fraud seeks to receive additional and unwarranted and illegal Medicare funds by using a code that may not be merited but results in the need for further services and tests, and, therefore higher reimbursements.

What does Medicare fraud hotline do?

The people that operate the Medicare fraud hotline are called “whistleblowers,” who are usually employed as healthcare professionals, hospital administrators, nurses, hospice or nursing home workers, ambulance drivers, or pharmacists. Because they are often employee or contractor insiders, they may have access to information otherwise difficult for government agencies and prosecutors to come by.

They often defy their employers or others who hold substantial power over them and their financial security. In exchange for their courage and civic participation, the law permits them to share in any monies recovered or fines levied against those prosecuted in suits they initiate. Although there are many contacts to report the crime, the Medicare fraud hotline in various areas are equally reliable.

Incoming search terms:

• medicare fraud hotline
• medical fraud cases