Consider this rogue’s gallery of data concerning Medicare fraud from a variety of government sources.

1. According to the US Office of Management and Budget in 2008, Medicare’s fee for service cut its error rate from 4.4 percent to 3.9 percent in 2007. However, for the same year, Medicare and its sister program, Medicaid, made an estimated $23.7 billion in improper payments.
2. Some good news: According to the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2009, the US government saves $1.55 for every $1.00 it invests in fighting Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
3. An alarming and deadly figure from the US Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations in 2008: Dead physicians were paid $92 million for 478,500 claims from 2000 to 2007.
4. The Inspector General’s report for the Department of Health and Human Services in 2008 reported that 29% of Medicare claims for durable medical equipment were in error in fiscal year 2006.
5. The American College of Radiology, in a 2004 report, claimed that private insurers and Medicare pay more than $15 billion per year for needless imaging tests.
6. Medicare paid dubious claims for 18 types of medical supplies that patients perhaps did not need. The bill? More than $1 billion. The study involved claims between 2001 and 2006 and was reported by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in a 2008 report.

That final report included such absurdities as walkers for patients with purported sinus congestion, paraplegia or shoulder injuries.

And hundreds of thousands of claims were lodged for diabetes-related glucose test strips for Medicare patients suffering purported breathing problems, bubonic plague or sexual impotence.

Report Medicare fraud here.

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