Millions of Americans each year are advised by their doctors to receive knee or hip replacements. Would it disturb you to know that many of these procedures were recommended by doctors who received kickbacks for each one they performed?
It’s bone-chilling to consider that an American doctor would actually replace someone’s knee or hip – when they didn’t need it – so he could make more money.
Horrifying as it is, this scenario is not the plot of a science fiction novel or a Hollywood movie. It happens in real hospitals, to real patients every day.
The Justice Department recently announced that the entire knee and hip replacement product industry has been implicated in a massive kickback scheme to pay doctors millions of dollars for using their products.
It goes like this. A patient has knee or hip pain. One of the most common treatments is arthroscopic surgery, a minimally invasive procedure. Another option may be a regiment of medicine to treat an ailing knee or hip. If the doctor recommends either of these possibilities, however, he receives no remuneration, apart from his generous, but usual, fees. If he elects to perform a knee or hip replacement using the products of certain vendors, the doctor is given cash or other valuable gratuities.
The five major manufacturers of knee and hip replacement products have admitted that they have been competing to pay the highest kickback to doctors for performing knee and hip replacements to convince them to use their product. The gratuities were so significant that these companies agreed to pay $311 million in fines.
Is the promise of a kickback enough to taint the medical advice of even the most respected doctor? Because that question can never be satisfactorily answered, the law flatly prohibits kickbacks.
At least for now, the government has put a stop to the kickback scheme for knee and hip replacements. But what about all those people who underwent painful knee or hip replacements? How can they know whether the procedures were truly necessary or their doctors simply succumbed to greed? Even if the procedures were necessary, was the selection of the replacements based on the quality of the product or the highest kickback?
If this situation offends you, there is something you can do about it. Although you cannot end the suffering of these victims, you can protect future victims from other kickback schemes that plague the health care industry.
The Department of Justice pays huge rewards to those who report kickback schemes of this kind. If you have evidence that your company or another company is paying kickbacks, you can not only help stop it, but you can collect a sizeable reward for reporting it.
Keep in mind that very few kickbacks come in the form of a check marked “kickback” payable to a doctor or hospital. Some kickbacks are paid in cash. More often they are disguised as a gratuitous consulting agreement or educational grant. The telltale sign is that the payment exceeds the fair market value of the actual services rendered.
A kickback usually begins with a wink and a nod that the gravy train will continue as long as the payee selects the right product in sufficient quantities. And it often only ends when a whistleblower stands up and hits the fraudulent actors hard in the pocketbook by reporting the kickback to the Justice Department.
When kickbacks are allowed to continue in health care, innocent people get hurt. If you know of kickbacks and special favors being offered, send a strong message to those who play illegal games with other people’s health. Report it to the Department of Justice following the procedures under its whistleblower reward program and claim your rightful reward.
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