Dentist theft case reveals huge Medicaid fraud

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Dentist theft case reveals huge Medicaid fraud
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 19 July 2005

A New York dentist, whose exorbitant claims on the state's Medicaid programme suggested that she treated more than 100 patients an hour, faces prosecution in what looks set to become a major political scandal.

Dr Dolly Rosen and an associate face charges of grand theft after her claims in 2003 for reimbursement from Medicaid, which is aimed at helping poor people get access to treatment, suggested that on one day she treated 991 patients.

After an intensive investigation, The New York Times asserted yesterday that fraud and abuse of the programme was costing billions of dollars every year.

The scams, rarely detected by state auditors, come in a bewildering number of varieties. There are the executives of retirement homes accused of accumulating extravagant salaries from Medicaid while skimping on nursing staff. Then there are the doctors routinely ordering costly ambulette vans for patients deemed unable to take public transport when many are perfectly capable. And there are the specialists prescribing steroids designed to bulk up Aids patients that are sold on the black market to body builders.About 4.2 million people depend on New York state's Medicaid programme. But it has become increasingly the target of blatant abuse and profiteering.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article300073.ece