HEALTHCARE DISPARITY

Healthcare Disparity

Healthcare Disparity

When any industry operates on huge level and involves more of the private entities rather than the government, it is likely to get affected from various factors. The purpose of this paper is to talk about one of such factors that is the main reason behind creating disparity and inequality on the availability of the healthcare services to everyone.

Access or Equity Trend

The factor that is elected for this paper to discuss healthcare disparity is of prevalence of fraud in the U.S healthcare industry. Fraud in healthcare system is increasing and it is because it is the industry in U.S that spends more money in health and care than any other industry. Fraud and healthcare insurance go hand in hand since its inception. But, in 1980's fraud in healthcare industry really came in the mainstream. According to Attorney General Janet Reno, in 1993, fraud in healthcare sector was regarded as the second major crime in U.S. In 1995, it was revealed by FBI that drug dealers are moving towards healthcare fraud. “Healthcare fraud was easier, safer and less risky for drug dealers and less chances of detecting fraud in healthcare than drugs dealing captivate drugs dealer to move towards healthcare system” (Freeh, 1995).

In 1997, it was reported by New York Times that New York and New Jersey's mafia gave up their activities of extortion and bid-rigging rackets to participate in fraud activities launched by health insurance companies. In 2003, one of the America's largest chains of hospitals Columbia HCA had to pay 1.7 billions of dollars in settlement with U.S department of justice. In 2008, a couple in Florida were caught because they submitted wrong claim of a bill of 420 million dollars for medical equipment (Raab, 2007). From healthcare service provider's end it can be done by incurring medical errors, by performing wrong surgeries, by charging the fees to the customer for the services that they did not perform, by conducting different tests, surgeries and other procedures that were not required and then charge the fees of these tests and procedures, by wrong diagnosis of patient's illness, by misrepresenting different procedures to get extra amount for non-covered service, charging amount for a more expensive procedure than one that was actually performed, by providing expired and poor quality medicines and by charging amount many times by showing different stages of a single procedure. Fraud from customer or ...