It’s our civic duty to fight corruption and fraud, particularly when perpetrated against our government. In a “qui tam” action, whistle-blowers can be rewarded with a healthy share of money recovered by the government from unscrupulous government contractors who over-charged, including physicians who steal from the government by trumping up “treatment” charges paid for by us taxpayers via medicaid or medicare. Think it doesn’t happen in Nevada, by Nevada doctors of all people? Think again and see below. If you’re aware of fraud which has been or is being committed against our government, against all of us, contact White & Wetherall about pursuing a qui tam action on your behalf, and potentially obtain a reward just for doing the right thing.
Medicare fraud suspected in Las Vegas.
In an article entitled, “The Allegation: Driven by greed, physicians charge Medicare, government insurance plans for patient exams that never happened,” the Las Vegas Sun (3/29, Allen) reported, “Allegations about doctors fraudulently billing Medicare and insurance companies are whispered throughout the Las Vegas medical community, and for good reason.” According to a study, “Medicare…spends more per patient in the Las Vegas region than in 90 percent of the regions nationwide.” While “the high level of billing could suggest better care… it is more likely, according to experts, that the government is paying for unnecessary services or ones that weren’t even rendered.” Pat Burns, spokesman for the national advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud, said, “Fraud is the ‘logical choice’ for unscrupulous doctors because the chance of getting caught is slight and the penalties for getting caught are weak.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today that there’s medical malpractice legislation in the works at the Nevada legislature. The bill, in its present form would apparently 1) lift the $350K non-economic damages cap on medical malpractice cases, 2) lengthen the time available to file suit, and 3) lengthen the time available to get a case to trial.
We won’t know for awhile if any of this will happen, but it’s an interesting response to the wide-spread outrage over the Endoscopy catastrophe that occurred around this time last year. While I’m thankful the aforementioned reforms are being considered, I feel bad for the countless victims of medical malpractice whose cases have been and continue to be resolved under the old statute. At present, with the “one size fits all” ham-fisted solution attained by the insurance industry (assisted by misguided Nevada physicians), a brain-injured victim of medical malpractice resigned to a lifetime of pain, impairment, and loss of quality of life is subject to the same $350K damages cap regardless of whether they are injured as a baby (with a 50 years left to live) as a 75 year-old with 5 years left to live. Makes no sense, but then again, it was the diminishment/elimination of malpractice claims that was the purpose of our present statutory scheme, not common sense or fairness to victims.
We have some fantastic, caring and skilled physicians in this state - a lot of them. The same can be said of law enforcement officers, attorneys, and people in all sorts of professions, so that’s not really the point. The point is, when a doctor causes negligent (or intentional) injury, they should be held accountable for the consequences of that harm. That’s what malpractice insurance is for. That’s what accountability is all about.
We have mechanisms for suing attorneys, peace officers, and everyone else for negligence that don’t involve caps on damages. Negligent doctors should be treated no better, no worse. PCW
Our firm has participated in blogging before, but I’m pleased to report that we are now able to blog directly from our web-site. For my part, my postings will include social commentary as well as (hopefully) useful information about Nevada law and our firm’s involvement in it. The challenge will be to fit this blogging effort into our busy practice, but I’ll certainly try my best to keep the posts frequent, fresh, and informative. Wish me luck! PCW
