Prescription for Profit : How Doctors Defraud Medicaid / Paul Jesilow, Henry N. Pontell, and Gilbert Geis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jesilow, Paul, 1950- author.

Pontell, Henry N., 1950- author.

Geis, Gilbert, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medicaid fraud.

Physicians--Malpractice--United States.

Physicians.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (262 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1993]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this explosive exposé of our health care system, Paul Jesilow, Henry N. Pontell, and Gilbert Geis uncover the dark side of physician practice. Using interviews with doctors and federal, state, and private officials and extensive investigation of case files, they tell the stories of doctors who profit from abortions on women who aren't pregnant, of needless surgery, overcharging for services, and excessive testing.How can doctors, recipients of a sacred trust and sworn to the Hippocratic Oath, violate Medicaid so egregiously? The authors trace patterns of abuse to the program's inauguration in the mid 1960s, when government authorities, not individual patients, were entrusted with responsibility for payments. Determining fees and regulating treatment also became the job of government agencies, thus limiting the doctors' traditional role. Physicians continue to disagree with Medicare and Medicaid policies that infringe on their autonomy and judgment.The medical profession has not accepted the gravity or extent of some members' illegal behavior, and individual doctors continue to blame violations on subordinates and patients. In the meantime, program guidelines have grown more confusing, hamstringing efforts to detect, apprehend, and prosecute Medicaid defrauders. Failure to institute a coherent policy for fraud control in the medical benefit program has allowed self-serving and greedy practitioners to violate the law with impunity.Prescription for Profit is a shocking revelation of abuse within a once-hallowed profession. It is a book that every doctor, and every patient, needs to read this year.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Chapter One. Professional Entrepreneurs

Chapter Two. Medicaid and Medicaid Fraud

Chapter Three. The Law in Action

Chapter Four. What the Doctors Did

Chapter Five. Doctors Tell Their Stories

Chapter Six. Conclusions and Speculations

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520911833

0520911830

9780585299525

0585299528

OCLC:

1163878243