HOME CARE RECIPIENT: MEDICAID FRAUD HARMS PATIENTS

Health care providers who use fraudulent billing cost Medicaid and Medicare billions of dollars every year but they also hurt the patients themselves. Two subcommittees at the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee are looking at the effects of Medicare and Medicaid Fraud on patients themselves. One patient, Richard West, a New Jersey resident who blew the whistle on his heal care company by filing a whistleblower suit, testified last week. His lawsuit lead to a $130 million civil settlement. In case case, Mr. West discovered the fraud after being told that he had exceeded his monthly benefit cap and that his Medicaid services were being suspended as a result. West, who is in a wheelchair and on a ventilator, keeps careful records and learned that he had been over-billed for nursing services by $700 per month. Those were services never performed. West will receive over $17 million for his share of the recovery in accordance with the False Claims Act whistleblower law.