I almost missed this bit of news claiming that Uncle Sam’s investigators set up bogus medical equipment companies that ultimately received approval from Medicare.

“Government investigators set up two fake companies to sell medical equipment like wheelchairs. Even though the fictional suppliers had no clients and offered no inventory, a report to Congress stated that these companies were approved by Medicare.”
Read the story at DotMed News

Am I surprised by all of this? Not at all. Many Medicare watchers have believed for some time that Medicare is in some ways similar to the dinosaur- Big body with a peanut sized brain driving the massive machinery, and it shows. From the same article:

“Medicare has admitted to making about $1 billion in improper payments of the $10 billion spent in the year that ended in March 2007 on wheelchairs, prosthetic devices, canes and other equipment, partly because of fraud, according to the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.”

Do I approve of fraud? Of course not, but Medicare has for some time been externalizing the problem and playing it out as if they are innocent victims. In fact we the tax paying public are the victims, as are the honest Medicare clients and vendors who fall victim to Medicare’s ever increasing Machiavellian philosophies on how best to provide funding. It’s difficult to think of Medicare as a victim when their lack of due diligence is at the core of some of the problems.

Kudos to Uncle Sam and the GAO for so neatly getting over on Medicare. They have confirmed what so many people have suspected for so long. But it’s one thing to uncover vulnerabilities and quite another fixing them. Dinosaurs are big, sloppy, and sure as heck hard to control. Let’s see how this plays out.