It is estimated that health care fraud, especially involving medical bills submitted to Medicare/Medicaid, cost the government (and hence, the tax payers) billions of dollars per year. If you are aware of fraud being committed, an Evansville whistleblower lawyer can assist you stopping the fraud and recovering potentially a substantial amount for your good deeds.
Whistleblower (qui tam) laws are very important to the federal government’s efforts to crack down on the fraudulent abuses. Because of the nature of the fraud being committed, it is important that insiders come forth to reveal fraudulent medical billing claims and practices. Oftentimes, it is only insiders who have the ability to know about these fraudulent actions. Only about 2{6f4efdc9c5d21be616bda617b226fe547f5c58c4cc2beb40965b9a6a2d50fd93} of claims are audited per year. Thus, the potential for fraudulent submissions to slip through the cracks is great and often results in huge monetary windfalls to unethical medical providers. Your role in revealing the fraudulent actions will influence what monetary amount you are entitled to for your recovery. An experienced Evansville whistleblower lawyer can advise you regarding the potential monetary award that you might receive.
Medical providers commit a variety of types of fraud. For instance, billing for services not provided or services not necessary is considered fraud. Also, upcoding and unbundling medical services are fraudulent acts. Each medical service rendered has a code that is attached to it for billing purposes. Upcoding is when a medical provider submits a bill to Medicare/Medicaid using a code for amore expensive service than what it actually provided. Unbundling occurs when a medical provider bills individually for tests and procedures conducted at the same time.
When medial providers fail to disclose errors in medical billing to Medicare/Medicaid another type of fraud is committed. Kickback schemes between provider and drug companies can be fraudulent. Specifically, providers are not allowed in most cases to receive any sort of compensation for prescribing particular medicines. Sometimes, medial providers submit fraudulent overhead cost reports. Finally, medical providers have been known to fraudulently secure (and execute) grants or programs funded by the government. There are other types of medical billing fraud – these are just examples. If you are aware of any abuse, you should not delay in talking to an Evansville whistleblower lawyer.
Additionally, provisions are specifically written into whistleblower (qui tam) laws to protect you from retaliatory acts by your employer. An Evansville whistleblower lawyer can explain in detail what rights you have.
Contact Lane Siesky, Evansville whistleblower lawyer, today at (812) 402-7700 for a free confidential consultation regarding your employment matter.