The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "healthcare fraud" ...
-
Home Health Care Fraud
Exposing how the health care company Maxim Healthcare overbilled their patients, costing the U.S. taxpayers thousands of dollars. Through a whistleblower prosecutors were able to build a case against the firm, resulting in the largest home health care fraud fine ever.
Tags: health care; fraud; maxim health care; medicare; medicaid; whistleblower; fine; overbilling
-
First, Do No Harm
This investigation focused on lax supervision of doctors-in-training, patient harm and alleged billing fraud at Dallas' premier medical school complex and its primary teaching hospital, which are financed largely by taxpayers. It also examined more broadly questions about medical training, patient care and healthcare fraud at teaching hospitals around the United States.
Tags: doctor training; patient harm; patient care; Medicare fraud; health care; healthcare; Dallas; medical school; hospital; billing fraud; surgery
-
Home Health Hustler
This investigation exposed a woman using multiple identities to set up and operate fraudulent home health care businesses and bill the government. Their investigation found Irene Anderson, also known as Iya Edwards, was in the country illegally and ordered deported nearly twenty years previous, yet she was able to establish numerous home health care agencies and collect millions of dollars in government money. She received Medicare payments for patients who would not typically qualify for home care coverage and for patients who received no home health care at all. This story exposed lapses in federal healthcare and legal systems as well as in the state regulatory system home health care providers. The news team found several ex-employees who had reported fraud and abuse to the state, but nothing had been done. In fact, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services claimed it conducted an investigation and found nothing, clearing the way for Anderson to continue to fraudulently bill the federal government. The investigation triggered an arrest, a federal raid, criminal charges, repayment of millions of tax dollars and promises of legislative change.
Tags: Texas; home health care; fraud; Medicare fraud; public records
-
Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry
The book "investigated and documented the roles played by physicians, hospital administrators and corporate executives in a ten-year scheme to defraud Medicare and private insurers of tens of millions of dollars by performing unnecessary invasive tests and heart surgery" on patients.
Tags: medicine; hospitals; health care; health; Medicaid; surgery; fraud; Tenet Healthcare; federal investigation; Redding Medical Center;
-
Rent a Patient
In this hidden camera investigation, ABC News Primetime uncovers the nationwide medical insurance scam that sends healthy people to surgery for profit. So far, recruiting people to have unnecessary procedures done has cost the insurance industry billions of dollars in fraudulent claims. Recruiters pull people in with offers of free cosmetic surgery and, in many cases, they are required to have the expensive procedures far from home. "The story resulted in the indictment of one surgery center, where ABC News correspondent John Quinones was offered money to have surgery. On the day our report aired, the FBI raided that facility and three others."
Tags: medical insurance scams; suspicious claims; healthcare; cosmetic surgery; insurance fraud
-
Taken for a ride
An L.A. area organized crime group fraudulently billed Medicare for more than 100 million dollars. Sources say the group started to recruit elderly patients 400 miles north, in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a lucrative scheme, recruiters lured mostly Vietnamese seniors all the way from San Jose to the bogus clinics on the Southland. The elderly citizens, many of whom don't speak a word of English, were bribed to come to the clinics. Once the seniors got to the clinics, the scammers obtained Medicare numbers and patient signatures, then billed Medicare and taxpayers for thousands of dollars in tests never performed.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Medicare; fraudulent billing; organized crime; health clinics; healthcare fraud; medicare card; medicare statement; lien bills; medicare fraud; fake clinics; Dr. Laurie Magbanua
-
Medical Rebels
Public discontent with corporate medicine continues to grow and healthcare professionals have been crossing the line into subtly and overtly illegal acts--from manipulation of the system and defiance of laws they deem unjust to fraud and threats of violence--in defense of their patients.
Tags: healthcare workers; public health professionals; managed-care industry; healthcare professionals; HMOs; lawbreaking
-
Medi-Crack
Fox News/Fox Files reports "an undercover investigation of a health-care system scam fueling a drug epidemic. On the streets of LA.... Many people with Medi Cal and/or Medicare cards were recruited and paid to go to the doctor. In many instances these people took the money and bought drugs, in numerous cases crack, which provided the "entrepreneurs" behind this scam, steady, dependent volunteers for their illegal enterprise. The doctors would use the Medicare / Medi Cal cards to bill California State and/or Federal government for services rendered. ..."
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT insurance fraud ethics Dr. Jay Borstein Medicare fraud
-
No title (id: 13291)
A revitalized False Claims Act is proving to be a new weapon for health-care employees who blow the whistle on rip-offs. The qui tam provision of the act, enables employees of government contractors to bring fraud suits on behalf of the government, essentially broadened the Department of Justice's investigatory function by privatizing part of it. The article focuses on a particular case that resulted in U.S. Homecare, a major Medicare provider, repaying the government $650,000. (May 1996)
Tags: Reidinger Fraud Doctors Medicare False Claims Act Tina Schenherr Fraud Health care 5 pgs.
-
No title (id: 13090)
Dr. Mabel Chen, the director of Arizona'a health-care program for the poor--hailed recently as a national model, resigned amid a federal investigation into accusations of widespread mismanagement and fraud. This Arizona Republic story looks into her claim that her departure had nothing to do with the investigation. (Feb. 2, 1996)