Teaching Hospitals: Where to Find the Big Fraud?
"The medical education community is up in arms over the HHS (US Department of Health and Human Services) inspector general's PATH audits, which could cost the nation's medical institutions billions of dollars.
"So far, two institutions have been audited under the 'Physicians at Teaching Hospitals,' or PATH, program. The Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania agreed to pay the government $10 million to resolve 'alleged errors' in billing, plus a penalty of $20 million. And Thomas Jefferson Faculty Foundation is paying $6 million in overpayments and $6 million in fines.
"Currently, about 30 institutions are undergoing audits, with the inspector general expected to announce several settlements in the next two months."
With almost 25% of the teaching hospitals being audited for Medicare fraud, perhaps the real culprits in the high cost of health care will finally be discovered. But one still has to wonder why this article tells the reader that these audits "could cost the nation's medical institutions billions of dollars" instead of saying that the nations medical institutions have cost the American public billions of dollars!
Walking the auditor's gangplank. American Medical News, December 9, 1996.
Antibiotics: a Replacement for Conversation? "It's a lot easier to give the patient a prescription for an antibiotic than to sit down and talk to them (about getting more) fluids and improving nutrition, and doing everyting that they can to allow their own body to fight off the infection."
Miriam Alexander, MD
Public Health Professor, John Hopkins University
Quoted on Intelihealth ([url=http://www.intelihealth.com]http://www.intelihealth.com[/url]), August 18, 1997.
