Phyrfight Intel

I’ve added a category called “Our Money” dedicated to government waste and how our tax money is spent.

The first post is from Forbes via Britt.

Rx For Fraud

“Government spending on power wheelchairs climbed 450% between 1999 and 2003, to $1.2 billion. A report released last year by Health & Human Services’ inspector general found that only 13% of those it surveyed who got the most popular wheelchair met the Medicare coverage requirements. This is what happens when someone is spending other people’s money.

The four contractors that process Medicare’s wheelchair claims–Palmetto GBA, Cigna HealthCare, AdminaStar Federal and HealthNow New York–saw a spurt in spending as early as 1997, but the office that runs Medicare and Medicaid did not lead a coordinated response until 2003, says the Government Accountability Office.

In one egregious case last year the U.S. Attorney in Houston charged two physicians, Charles Skripka Jr. and Jayshree Patel, for conspiring to defraud Medicare of $40 million between February 2002 and June 2003. The duo allegedly approved wheelchairs for up to 50 Medicare beneficiaries per day, in return for kickbacks from the suppliers. The doctors have pleaded not guilty; the owner of their clinic, Lewis Gottlieb, has put in a guilty plea and is helping the government.

The feds in April sued the Scooter Store of New Braunfels, Tex., which billed Medicare for $400 million or so since 1997. In ads, the Scooter Store suggested to old folks that the government would pay for scooters. But, the government alleges, when customers called the company to inquire about reimbursement, the Scooter Store pushed motorized wheelchairs on them, with the result that Medicare ended up paying for expensive and unnecessary equipment. The government is supposed to pay for a motor-driven chair only if the patient would be confined to bed without one. The Scooter Store says it has done nothing wrong and that the government is trying to get out of repaying legitimate claims.”