At $55.98 A Toenail, Fraud Docs Are Clipping Medicare And The American Public

Online, August 9, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The Medicare system is sick - and getting sicker.

One example: Eisenhower Medical Center charges $55.98 per toenail - or a total of $559.87 paid by Medicare - to trim the toe nails of diabetics.

This is just one of the atrocities afflicting the Medicare system. Double-billing, fraud-inflicted doctors suck more cash than they deserve from a conglomerate that is already clogged by greed.

And it's not just doctors that are on the take. Medical and pharmaceutical lobbyists line their own pockets by keeping the price of health procedures inordinately high and patented drugs out of the generic prescription stream where seniors might get them and save a few bucks.

The Federal Government is acting in its ham-handed way, even though the Old Boy network in Washington has washed its hands of the whole situation by saying, "Medicare is fraught with fraud. Let's just cut out a half a billion dollars and teach those old geezers a thing or two." As is typical of some miscreant medical personnel, the Beltway Boys cut the wrong leg of the sickly patient called Medicare.

The Medicare malady lies less with the system and more with the bitching, moaning citizenry who pay the freight with their fixed income dollars, but do nothing to remedy the ongoing wrongdoing. It's long past time to direct some guts toward the cause of the problem.

It's a fact that 89.2 percent of all U.S. senior citizens do nothing but whine and complain amongst themselves about Medicare charges and higher insurance premiums, yet, at the end of the day, are content to just live their lives in a pricey insurance vacuum, oblivious to things like future skyrocketing insurance costs with the same limitations.

Elders packing Medicare cards congregate in doctors' offices and, while waiting their turn, exchange stories about the system's malfeasance. Do they think this intra-group kibitzing will solve the problem?

Apparently, it occasionally does - even by accident. A Fort Lauderdale man inadvertently ratted out his doctor when Medicare called to ask about a procedure his physician had billed them for. The man responded, "What procedure?" Turns out the doctor billed Medicare for something his patient didn't even get. That doc soon found agents knocking on his door.

Even worse than that are the runaway costs that pass for legitimate billing - and which Medicare pays.

As noted above, if you need your toenails cut and trimmed because you're a diabetic, the Eisenhower Medical Center will do it - for just $416 for the office visit and $185 for the "surgery." (Surgery? Toenail cutting?) That's $60.01 per individual toenail -- for not more than two minutes for a cut and trim - and with no explanation for the charges.

But Medicare got nailed for the cost of the trim -- $559.87 in all. Coincidentally, for five years, that very same orthopedic doctor had billed Medicare $94.85 and received $26.32 for the exact same procedure.

This costly nail-trimming measure continued until the doctors' merger with Eisenhower Medical Center billing practice system came about. There's nothing like a good old American non-government business to stomp down on medical billing chicanery at the drop of a hat - or a toenail.

Add thousands of other diabetic patients that Medicare is paying $60.01 per toenail clip and you've got millions upon millions of dollars in fraud.

Money first, and medical care second. That's clearly the way the American healthcare system is heading. Nobody seems to care that the only way all Americans can help replace pricey health insurance is to put the heat on the politicians playing politics with our lives and America's future.

"You can't leave it up to wayward lawmakers who get paid by lobbyists, trade associations, etc, to look the other way," said Stan Cotton, a 50-year advertising guru who has tackled many issues that have threatened America.

Cotton is a lot of things. Feisty. Unorthodox. Unflinching. And, by his own account, has always been "a good old-fashioned patriot" out to "help America -- without getting goddamn stuffy about it."

He's come up with some creative, unconventional and downright in-your-face ideas to catch the public's attention.
Now, as a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Cotton has gone out of his way to push the envelope. He's created a campaign to set right Medicare fraud.

"Now, before it's too late," he said, "we need to radically change the way Medicare funds and delivers health care."

To join the effort, log on to http://www.pickcotton.com/medicarefairgame.html. Or visit the official government Website, www.medicare.gov, and give them a piece of your mind.

It won't cost you a dime.

http://www.pickcotton.com/medicare is fair game.html