Last week I discussed the likely impacts of the impending media coverage with my family,and had conversations at work about the potential fallout. Would our clients,most of whom are doctors,leave us in droves?
I expected some personal impact,but I never imagined I’d be called “Mediscare Faux” and be scared to leave my house. And worse,that this vitriol would come from people who call themselves health professionals. When I started my nursing career almost 40 years ago,we had codes of conduct that held us to the highest professional standards. The campaign against me this week has fallen well short of those standards.
Now is not the time for their hysteria. Instead,we need a considered debate about the serious structural problems that enable Medicare to be so easily abused.
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Much has been said of my conservative estimate of 30 per cent leakage from Medicare. Some have demanded an algorithm while others have suggested that such high figures have never been seen before. They are wrong.
And this should worry all Australians because it suggests two things:first,that those who have responsibility for Medicare payment integrity do not understand how health system leakage is measured internationally;second,they haven’t read the literature.
I spent the first year of my eight-year doctoral journey reading everything that had ever been written nationally and internationally on medical billing compliance,and mythesis presents the best available evidence. By contrast,the government estimates are based on secret reports.