With an aging population, the demand for services under Medicare has increased dramatically. One area that has seen a sharp rise is with physical therapy. Physical Therapy can serve as a critically important component of treatment following things like traumatic injuries or strokes. Indeed, treatment from a practiced physical therapist can often help a patient avoid or prolonged a risky surgery.
As important as the physical therapy profession is, it is still subject to the same sorts of bad actors that other profession are. Indeed, the New York Times, recently ran an article illustrating just this fact. One physical therapist is under scrutiny for billing Medicare $4.1 million dollars. That works out to about 183,000 treatments a year, 500 a day, 21 an hour.
The Times has also come up with an interesting tool to track Medicare payments. It is available here and you can see clearly how much all of the medical providers in your area are billing Medicare.
If you have reason to believe that your provider or someone that you work for is overcharging Medicare, you may be able to bring a Qui Tam action against them on behalf of the U.S. government. If you have questions about possible Medicare fraud, Donati Law may be able to help.
