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Has health insurance fraud caused you to lose health insurance?

Do you know that one of the reasons for high health insurance premium is health insurance frauds? That’s right, health insurance frauds cost the insurance companies millions of dollars and to mitigate the loss health carriers pass it to the consumers in the form of increased premium. Health insurance is gradually becoming an item of luxury and frauds have contributed towards it in a great way.

Forms of frauds

Health insurance fraud may evolve around people like- doctors/therapists/hospitals, consumers, agents and at times even the health insurance carrier. However, false/improper billing may be the most common form of health insurance fraud. Also it is illegal to charge more from the insured patients than uninsured ones for the same service rendered. Health fraud can occur in any of the following ways.

• The doctor’s office may charge for services that were not rendered or tests that were not performed.
• May bill twice for the same treatment or can file multiple claims for single treatment performed.
• May charge for unnecessary treatments and tests. Also the treatment process can be stretched in an attempt to collect more from the insurance companies.

Prepare yourself against scams

Awareness and knowledge are the main weapons in the battle against. Actually by practicing few simple steps you can protect both yourself and your family.

• When you are planning to buy health insurance, check with the authenticity of the company. The BBB and the State Insurance Department would give you the idea of the company which has approached you to sell insurance coverage.  Don’t forget to look up for the licensing detail of both the insurance company and the agent.
• If a deal sounds too good, most likely it’s a fraud. Remember that no benefit comes for free. Therefore, if you are offered too many benefits at a very low cost, be weary of it.
• Look for possible signs of fraud. If the sales person is too eager to sell the product, simply tell him that you need more time to think.
• Most of the billing related frauds can be detected by examining the insurance payment statement. Preserve the bills of the services that you have received. It’d help you in comparing the actual charge and claim value.
• If you suspect any fraudulent activity immediately make the respective departments and/or insurance company aware of it.

Let’s the congress battle it out whether or not we should have healthcare for all but for the time being we can educate ourselves against health insurance fraud so that we don’t end up losing what we have.