Stop Medicare fraud

A major reason for the billions of dollars in Medicare losses to fraud is the “pay and chase” policy, where suspicious claims are promptly paid before investigation.

This absurd nonbusiness-like approach makes absolutely no sense and promotes rampant fraud and abuse. It should be easy to change this method of paying claims and sharply reduce fraud.

But who says the federal government does anything the logical way?

Common sense dictates that our federal rulemakers need to promptly correct this pay-first situation, or else we will continue to lose billions to Medicare fraud. It is much less expensive to investigate before you pay, than it is to pay and then prosecute and try to recover the money.

This story was originally published June 25, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Stop Medicare fraud."