Wrong bills in health care

Increase in false health care billing. Health insurance companies affected by massive billing fraud.

As the health insurance company "AOKplus" announced, false bills in the health sector have almost quadrupled compared to the previous year. The cashier estimated the damage at around 815,000 euros.

False billing in the health system, the expenditure of the statutory health insurance to speed up. As the merged Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse AOK plus Saxony and Thuringia announced, was due to overcharged services total damage of around 815,000 euros. As the cash register further announced, the over-calculated health services were already demanded back from the service providers. What is shocking is that the damage has almost quadrupled in comparison to the previous year. However, the number of unreported cases is likely to be far higher, since not all service providers actually report incorrectly billed amounts. Reasons for this could be unlawful actions or errors in the billing system.

The Association of Alternative Wages (vdek) in Thuringia also reports similar amounts wrongly invoiced. For example, the association includes health insurance companies such as the DAK, KKH Allianz and the Techniker Krankenkasse. Although it has registered fewer suspected cases of manipulated bills, but the amount of damage was far higher than in the previous year. In 2009, about 30,000 euros were required from partners back. This year, the sum of the claims back already at 100,000 euros. One reason for this was mentioned by the Vdek-Landesvizechef Arnim Findeklee. wrong billing in the emergency services. Here more staff costs have been charged than were actually available.

In order to minimize the cases of fraud each Kassenärztliche union after § 81a SGB V set up a body to combat misconduct and fraud in health care. These agencies will follow up on relevant information to minimize the number of fraud cases. Alone by wrong accounts by clinics result in an annual total damage of about 1.5 billion euros, as communicated by the GKV-Spitzenverband in April this year. After the new numbers, the total should be much higher. For the year 2010, there are no exact sums. (sb, 18.12.2010)

Also read:
AOK plus: grades for doctors
Clinics: Billions due to bad billing?
Raid on a Hamburg doctor: suspected fraud

Picture: Rainer Sturm