The Second Week of August is National Report Health Care Fraud Week, Founded by Whistleblower Advocate and Former Department of Justice Attorney Joel D. Hesch
Lynchburg, VA (PRWEB) August 07, 2017 -- By some estimates, as much as ten percent of all health care expenditures are lost due to fraud.* Because U.S. health care spending exceeds $3 trillion a year (which is nearly $10,000 per person)** as much as $300 billion in health care costs could be lost annually to fraud. Because the Medicare program spends close to $650 billion a year*** as much as $65 billion may be lost to Medicare fraud alone. It’s no wonder why we have a national health care crisis!
The purpose of the National Report Health Care Fraud Week is to show the public how to get involved and even obtain a whistleblower reward for reporting Medicare fraud. The official website http://www.ReportHealthCareFraudWeek.com provides step-by-step instructions for reporting both private health care fraud and Medicare fraud.
With respect to Medicare fraud, a whistleblower can either apply for a reward for reporting it to the Department of Justice or report it anonymously by contacting CMS. To report private health care fraud, however, you must report it directly to the affected insurance company or the FBI.
Facts about the Department of Justice (DOJ) reward program paying monetary rewards for reporting Medicare fraud:
• Whistleblowers receive 15 to 30 percent of the amount DOJ recovers
• The average Medicare fraud reward is $690,000
• The highest reward is $150 million
• DOJ has recovered $34 billion in Medicare fraud brought by whistleblowers
• DOJ has paid over $4.75 billion in rewards
• Three-fourths of the government’s fraud cases are DOJ whistleblower reward cases.
After working for 15 years in the Department of Justice whistleblower reward office and working on fraud cases totaling $1.5 billion, whistleblower advocate and attorney Joel D. Hesch, formed the National Report Health Care Fraud Week.
According to Mr. Hesch, “I formed the National Report Health Care Fraud Week to help whistleblowers properly report health care fraud, and especially Medicare fraud for a reward. While at DOJ, I’ve seen whistleblowers make a lot of mistakes. Unless they properly report it, there’s no guarantee an investigation will take place. Worse yet, if they don’t scrupulously follow the formula, they won’t receive a reward.”
Hesch adds, “The National Report Health Care Fraud Week puts fraud-doers on notice that the public is fed up with fraud and is now armed with information on how to report it. Given the sizable monetary rewards offered by DOJ for reporting Medicare fraud, there is a strong incentive for whistleblowers to take a stand. The more whistleblowers step forward, the less likely companies will try to cheat because they will finally realize they can’t get away with it anymore.”
After leaving DOJ, Hesch formed his own law firm to exclusively represent whistleblowers nationwide in filing for rewards for reporting Medicare fraud or fraud against other government programs.
Free E-Book:
Get your free e-book with more details on how to report health care fraud just for visiting the official website http://www.ReportHealthCareFraudWeek.com
Footnotes
*https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Health (“Estimates of fraudulent billings to health care programs, both public and private, are estimated between 3 and 10 percent of total health care expenditures.”)
**https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet.html (Health care costs measured $3.2 trillion in 2015, or $9,990 per person)
***See https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet.html
(Medicare spending in 2015 was $646.2 billion). See also https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/medicare-funds-totaling-60-billion-improperly-paid-report/story%3fid=32604330 (CMS estimates that “last year some $60 billion of American taxpayer money, or more than 10 percent of Medicare’s total budget, was lost to fraud, waste, abuse and improper payments.”)
Joel Hesch, The Hesch Firm LLC, http://www.ReportHealthCareFraudWeek.com, +1 5405836353, [email protected]
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