Stats from the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud;
Health Insurance•
One of five U.S. adults — about 45 million people — say it's acceptable to defraud insurance companies under certain circumstances. Four of five adults think insurance fraud is unethical. (Four Faces of Insurance Fraud, Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, 2008)
• Nearly one of four Americans says it's ok to defraud insurers (8 percent say it's "quite acceptable" to bilk insurers, and 16 percent say it's "somewhat acceptable.") (Accenture, 2003)
• About one in 10 people agree it's ok to submit claims for items that aren't lost or damaged, or for personal injuries that didn't occur. Two of five people are "not very likely" or "not likely at all" to report someone who defrauded an insurer. (ibid)
The U.S. spends more than $2 trillion on healthcare annually. At least three percent of that spending — or $68 billion — is lost to fraud each year. (National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, 2008)
Fraud accounts for 19 percent of the $600 billion to $800 billion in waste in the U.S. healthcare system annually. Fraud amounts to between $125 billion and $175 billion annually, including everything from bogus Medicare claims to kickbacks for worthless treatments and other services. (Thomson Reuters, 2009)
The Justice Department launched 903 new health-care fraud prosecutions in the first eight months of FY 2011 more than all of FY 2010. This is an 85-percent increase over FY 2010, a 157-precent increase over FY 2006 and 822 percent over FY1991. If the national trend continues at this pace, 1,355 prosecutions will be logged by the end of FY 2011. (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, September 2011)
• Medicare and Medicaid made an estimated $23.7 billion in improper payments in 2007. These included $10.8 billion for Medicare and $12.9 billion for Medicaid. Medicare’s fee-for-service reduced its error rate from 4.4 percent to 3.9 percent. (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 2008)
• Medicare paid dead physicians 478,500 claims totaling up to $92 million from 2000 to 2007. These claims included 16,548 to 18,240 deceased physicians. (U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, 2008)
• Nearly one of three claims (29 percent) Medicare paid for durable medical equipment was erroneous in FY 2006. (Inspector General report, Department of Health and Human Services, 2008)
Medicare paid more than $1 billion in questionable claims for 18 categories of medical supplies that patients don’t appear to need. The study covered claims between January 2001 and December 2006. The claims included walkers for patients with purported sinus congestion, paraplegia or shoulder injuries. Hundreds of thousands of claims were made for diabetes-related glucose test strips for patients with purported breathing problems, bubonic plague, leprosy or sexual impotence. (U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2008)
