Price Tag for Health Care Fraud - $9.3 Billion
As reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, a new study has suggested that health care fraud may be one of the biggest factors driving up the cost of health care. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston will publish in the Annals of Internal Medicine this month that health care fraud cases over the past decade involving both federal and state governments have involved some $9.3 billion in alleged damages. The study, which was conducted in cooperation with the University of Melbourne, Australia, surveyed 379 federal health care whistleblower cases between 1996 and 2005. The study found that pharmaceutical manufacturers represented 4 percent of the defendants in the cases, but accounted for nearly 40 percent of the damages.
Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, who headed the study, stated that the intent of the study was to explore how targeting health care fraud could be used to control health care costs. The researchers further state that there is probably much more fraud within the health care system which has gone undiscovered, adding to costs.
