Medicare has been part of your journey, bringing a story of hope, strength, and courage to live a healthy and tranquil life. For every benefit that Medicare brings is building a hero in you. A hero who perseveres to become stronger, determines to be productive, and strives to be of services to others.
But for every hero’s journey comes with vulnerability and danger in the form of Medicare frauds. Here, they are your villains: socially-ill entities who mercilessly ruin the lives of Medicare beneficiaries by fraudulent activities and abuses in healthcare service. They can be someone you trust – physicians, surgeons, therapists, nurses, or even medical representatives – who betrayed you for personal interest and evil intent.
Defeated and cheated, now you wondered the best ways to overcome their malice. In your weakest point, you are filled with self-doubt, emotionally wrecked, and lost. If villains win, they would also demonize other lives. Would you allow them to ruin yours?
Of course not! Win at the end together with your Medicare Fraud Attorney, the guiding light who will help regain your strength, confidence, and hope for a just and secure life.
You are the hero we want to build. Thus, in this article, we will help you know the dangers of Medicare Fraud and Abuse, how it ruins your life, and ways to overcome its threat.
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Dangers of Medicare Fraud and Abuse
Quality healthcare strengthens the trust, security, and transparency of physician-patient relationships. In a real-life situation, patients put their full trust in doctors and nurses for a proper treatment of their health, data, and services. However, due to the negligence and evil intent, the old dynamic relationship has been ruined by Medicare Fraud and Abuse.
Medicare fraud and abuse have kept every patient awake through the silences behind their pains. Forced to hide in their weakest point, victims have lingered emotional and physical consequences under the sheets.
That being the case, you need a Medical Fraud Attorney to secure your life, health data, medical information, prior medical history, and hospital billings.
Medicare Fraud
Medicare Fraud, or commonly known as “Healthcare Fraud,” is an act violating criminal and civil laws through false claim submissions, factual misrepresentations, and illegal procurement of payments from Medicare, Medicaid, and other state-sponsored health insurance programs.
Medicare fraudsters are usually healthcare personnel you trusted, such as physicians, medical representatives, surgeons, telehealthcare companies, or even established healthcare organizations.
As a general rule, a healthcare person knows the act to be false but still pursued to procure an unauthorized reimbursement to practice.
But beware. Medicare fraudsters have different tactics to bait you and get what they want. Thus, here are the common types of Medicare Fraud:
- Kickback Schemes
- Physician’s Self Referral
- Medical Identity Theft
Medicare Abuse
While Medicare Fraud concentrates on the knowledge and intent of medicare fraudsters, Medicare Abuse focuses on the omission or negligence of medical practice in following proper coding and billing guidelines.
In other words, a medicare abuse manifests in the inconsistency of a sound medical, fiscal, and business practices of medical personnel.
Thus, here are common examples of Medicare Abuses:
- Billing Unnecessary Medical Services
- Billing for unlicensed personnel
- Defective products and manufacturing violations
How will Medicare Fraud and Abuse affect your life?
The growing community of Medicare Fraud pulls down the quality healthcare system, as the population of Medicare beneficiaries grows.
You are part of the system, which means that you will experience a great economic-financial loss and a threat to your security.
Economic-Financial Loss
John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health revealed that the U.S. government lost around $30 to $40 billion due to Medicare fraud. Such a great loss that affected the millions of lives caused by fraud and abuse, which contributed to 6,700 premature deaths in 2013.
On the other hand, the FBI estimates that Medicare fraud affects American taxpayers to over $80 billion a year. Today, there are 44 million Medicare beneficiaries, which the enrollment expects to rise to 79 million by 2030.
Threat to Security
Everyone is a potential victim of Medicare fraud, including the taxpayers, the elderly, and yourself as a Medicare beneficiary.
First, recent cases have shown that Medicare fraud jeopardized a community of senior citizens by letting them sign for a “free” massage and billed falsely to a physical therapist.
Second, medicare fraudsters discriminate against race and ethnicity. They have been targeting the low-income, non-white, and dual-eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, and the disabled.
And lastly, some patients have expired because of false diagnoses, chemical injections, intravenous infusions, and unnecessary medical services, causing physical and psychological trauma to a 13-year old patient.
Let that sink in. Let this be your walk-up call.
How can you help?
If you’re working inside a healthcare organization or a member of the Medicare program, you can be a medicare whistleblower by reporting the first-hand experience of corruption and malpractices in healthcare services.
As a whistleblower, your goal is to expose anomalies and hidden agendas as your way to account for justice and transparency. Reporting these to the authorities also encourages others to stand against unjust healthcare services.
You may report physicians and other medical personnel for kickback schemes, physician’s self-referral, billing unnecessary medical services, etc. Thus, a Medicare Fraud Attorney can help you!
In cases of Medicare Fraud, where can I ask legal assistance?
For 30 years, Khouri Law has remained to be a client-first law firm that puts your integrity and security above all else. We value your protection against Medicare fraud, like how you value your life. Through our collaborative approach, respect, and reverence, can successfully represent you in blowing issues and exposing healthcare fraud activities.
Don’t worry. You can avail of our free consultation together with our world-class medicare fraud lawyers who have proven results and experiences in litigating Qui Tam lawsuits, recovering civil damages, prosecuting criminal cases, and protecting whistleblowers.
Do you need a Medicare Fraud Attorney?
From the dangers of Medicare Fraud and Abuse to your advocacy as a whistleblower, you need to hire a Medicare Fraud Attorney who will be your guiding light.
Ensuring that your Medicare Fraud attorney is your future asset rather than your liability, here are tips in finding a Medicare Fraud Attorney and the benefits of hiring him.
5 Tips For Selecting a Right Medicare Fraud Attorney
#1 Outstanding Reputation
An outstanding reputation amounts to his work ethics and personality towards his co-legal practitioners and his past clients.
Here, your goal is to check his efficiency, attitude, trust, and reliability in dealing with a business with you. Without getting biased, you have to ascertain how he handles pressure through diligence and discipline.
You are the hero of your battle against Medicare fraudsters. And the zealousness of your Medicare fraud attorney matters. Hence, ask about the recent medicare fraud cases he handled, the trial outcomes, and the verdict. Don’t be swayed on the winnings of the case, but also consider how he handled them.
#2 Excellent Credentials
Excellent credentials are an indication of his exceptional mastery of laws on Medicare fraud. It reflects his diligence and thriving interests in prosecuting criminals and protecting whistleblowers.
Moreover, credentials are not limited only to his outstanding performance during his law school. But also, your Medicare fraud attorney must present certificates from a long-term mandatory legal education and other legal training.
You have to check if he has a background in the medical industry or obtain training in a medical organization. But above all, always check if your medical attorney can practice litigation within your jurisdiction.
#3 Proven results and profound experiences in healthcare litigation
Aside from his academic and extracurricular credentials, your Medicare Fraud attorney should have proven results and profound experiences in representing medical personnel, physicians, or doctors in a litigation.
He must ensure that he has an excellent mastery of Anti-Kickback Statutes, False Claims Act, the Stark Law, and Medicare and Medicaid laws and regulations.
Always bear in mind that your Medicare Fraud attorney is hitting two birds in one stone — a medical case under the judgment of legal premises. In worse cases, you can be charged for damages and compensation if you’ll lose.
#4 Responsive and Accessible
Constant communication equates to the consistency of information that helps in your case. Thus, you have to consider the availability of your Medicare Fraud attorney in checking the progress of the case.
During a healthcare litigation, filing case documents can be so demanding and complex. If you fail to comply with the legal documents on time, it could lead to the dismissal of your case.
Thus, never miss the opportunity of communicating to your Medicare fraud attorney. Always ask legal questions if needed. And also he must need to update you with the requirements and the progress. Otherwise, your case will fail.
#5 Straightforward and Frank in Giving Legal Advice
Beware of some lawyers who give sugar-coated advice and positive feedback to your case. Your case is not a fairytale story, where antagonists win in the end. Rather, your case can lose your wealth and resources, if your Medicare fraud attorney is not straightforward and frank in giving legal advice.
Always make sure that your medical fraud attorney reviews the merits of your case and asks what could be its potential outcome. He must be straightforward and frank. In other words, he should be bold in revealing the rate of winning or losing your case.
Consider his professional comments, whether it is harsh or not. If he sees that your case won’t win, the right Medicare Fraud attorney will always find ways for you.
Benefits of Hiring a Medicare Fraud Attorney
#1 Knows the tactics and people to deal in litigation
Hiring a healthcare fraud attorney experienced in Medicare fraud gives you more confidence in boxing up the game through his profound knowledge of common tactics of Medicare fraudsters. That’s why hiring him increases your winning rate and contributes to the success of your case.
He knows better than you — the schemes, drama, and overused lines of a medicare fraud during a hearing. Also, he knows how to persuade connections in the court, such as judges, clerks of courts, and prosecutors.
On the other hand, persuading insurance companies for settlement can be so grave that intimidation can lose you. Hence, through a strong correspondence, your Medical Fraud Attorney will develop ways to negotiate through winning expertise.
#2 Speeds up the process
You don’t need to hire two lawyers to prosper your case. Your Medicare Fraud attorney is enough to handle both civil and criminal cases.
Hiring him speeds up the process, in which he knows better when and how to file without forfeiting your case.
Since he is diligent in responding and communicating to your needs, he ensures that all of your case documents are filed before its prescriptive period and attends all case hearings.
#3 Works with Diligence and Upholds Discretion
Data privacy and confidentiality are two crucial matters during a Medicare case. Well, your Medicare Fraud attorney knows better when to lose or bargain during a case.
The diligence on the proper filing of case documents should be upheld with discretion. Thus, a Medicare Fraud Attorney thinks his accountability on the outright maintenance of your data and case details.
#4 Negotiates to Settle
Bargaining is a tough and complex challenge during a Medicare fraud case. But, by hiring a Medicare fraud attorney makes it more smooth and simple through a winning defense strategy and communication tactics.
Your Medicare fraud attorney knows no fear in negotiating and settling without so many costs. Here, he is always persuasive in formulating an offer in which an insurance company accepts first. Hence, he always thinks in advance more than you do.
From his proven experiences in negotiating during litigation, you have nothing to worry about what to do next.
#5 Stays with you all the time
More than your lawyer, your Medicare Fraud attorney is your confidant — your trusted partner. He feels the way you’re in pain during litigation and empathizes with your strength in telling the truth.
Because you are his client, he also ensures that every time you deal with him is a quality and winning moment. Remember that you learn legal premises from your Medical fraud attorney, and he also learns from your experiences.
Henceforth, he stays with you all the time, beyond what you paid. He will painstakingly study your case, like how he always saves his life.
Key Takeaways
Your Medicare case should not end as a story of tragedy, misfortune, and mishap. But rather, it should build social awareness through justice, accountability, and transparency.
Due to the negligence in medical practice and malicious intent to disadvantage a patient’s life, the trust and partnership of physician-patient relationships have been ruined. You are part of the system, which means that the Medicare Fraud and Abuse can affect your life through an economic finance loss and a threat to your security.
Let that sink in. Let this be your walk up call. You can be a hero of other lives by becoming a whistleblower, exposing the corruption and malpractices in healthcare services. But, can you handle pressure alone? Can you beat the odds through your skill?
From the dangers of Medicare Fraud and Abuse to your advocacy as a whistleblower, you need to hire a Medicare Fraud Attorney who will be your guiding light that saves the day!
To ensure that hiring your Medicare Fraud attorney is your future asset rather than your liability, here are the following tips on selecting the right one:
- A Medicare Fraud Attorney should have an outstanding reputation;
- A Medicare Fraud Attorney should have excellent credentials;
- A Medicare Fraud Attorney should have proven results and profound experiences;
- A Medicare Fraud Attorney should be responsive and accessible; and
- A Medicare Fraud Attorney should be straightforward and frank in giving legal advice.
Indeed, you’re not just winning in your case, but also you’re winning in your life. When you hire a Medicare Fraud Attorney, you will experience happiness through the following benefits:
- Your Medicare Fraud Attorney knows the best tactics and people to deal in litigation;
- Your Medicare Fraud Attorney speeds up the process;
- Your Medicare Fraud Attorney works with diligence and upholds discretion;
- Your Medicare Fraud Attorney negotiates to settle; and
- Your Medicare Fraud Attorney stays with you all the time.
End your story with victory. Battle fraud together with your Medicare Fraud Attorney!