If it seems like every day, or at a minimum every week, brings news of another scam within the health care sector, you wouldn’t be wrong. From duplicate enrollments to “coverage” of dead people to the recent growth of skin substitutes, examples of waste, fraud, and abuse abound.
Recent stories have drawn attention to abuses regarding treatments for autism. The Minnesota fraud scandal brought this issue to the fore, but the problems go well beyond the Gopher State. A recent Wall Street Journal report and investigations by the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general show the widespread nature of the problem, which, in addition to outright fraud, also encompasses wasteful and unnecessary government spending.
