Healthcare Fraud Recoveries Provide A Big Return For The US

Most people would agree that health care fraud is not a good thing, but there is a proverbial silver lining, of sorts. Chasing down the violators actually fills the US Treasury. In fiscal year 2012, for instance, the US Justice Department recovered more than $3 billion in settlement and judgments in civil cases involving health care fraud against the government (see this). And now, a new report finds that every dollar invested by the federal government to investigate and prosecute health care fraud generates a healthy return. From 2008 to 2012, the feds spent $574.6 million to recover nearly $9.4 billion, which amounts to a return on investment of 16.3 to 1, according to Taxpayers Against Fraud, a non-profit that supports whistleblower lawsuits. The return, however, may be even higher and approaching 20 to 1. How so? Civil fraud recoveries not only represent a portion of enforcement actions taken in health care fraud cases, as increasingly large settlements that produce large criminal fines and state Medicaid recoveries are not accounted for in federal statistics, according to TAF. The report finds that criminal fines associated with false claims recoveries by the federal government between 2008 and 2012 were $4.5 billion, and that recoveries by state governments totaled $4.4 billion. Combined with the nearly $9.4 billion recovered in civil cases, the total amount recovered for the five-year period was roughly $18.3 billion (here is the report). The analysis was undertaken to...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs