Berlin - Around 230 outpatient care services with Eastern European founders are said to have set up system for billing fraud, some of them nationwide. Services that had not been provided were billed in cooperation with patients and doctors. That is what Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) and the world have today, citing final report by special investigators.
According to information from BR, the report of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) North Rhine-Westphalia and the Federal Criminal Police Office involved in the investigation and Welt showed that the network was mainly controlled from Berlin and the long-term care insurance funds were cheated out of large sums. Regional focal points of the care mafia are North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin, as well as Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria.
The report “ Billing fraud in the healthcare system by Russian nursing services “also reveals that many of the accused outpatient nursing services and their operators were also involved in other criminal activities, including money laundering, protection money payments and gambling. The former company operators are also said to include people who are suspected of being contract killers by the authorities.
The LKA North Rhine-Westphalia did not want to comment on the media reports. The investigation report is internal and not intended for the public, said spokesman in Düsseldorf.
Regulations have been tightened
In view of the alleged fraud networks, Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe (CDU) pointed out that because of such Cases the legal regulations were "significantly tightened" in the past year - through regular and unannounced controls of all nursing services as well as stricter regulations for the approval of nursing services. "The more stringent regulations must now be implemented consistently," said Gröhe in Berlin.
This should better protect people in need of care and their families from fraudulent activities. "This also means that the investigative authorities must fully investigate criminal cases," emphasized the minister. It is important that the federal states carefully examine the extent to which greater use of public prosecutor's offices for social law could help to accelerate proceedings against fraudulent care services and to improve clarification.
Fraud in care “particularly macabre” < / h2>
The federal government's representative for care, Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU), has described fraud in care as “particularly macabre”. News such as the one about the uncovering of suspected billing frauds by Russian-Eurasian outpatient care services made him "angry," Laumann said today on Südwestrundfunk. “But that's actually nothing new, we already knew year ago that there were such developments.“
Laumann pointed out that the control rights of the (MDK) had been strengthened year ago in the fight against care fraud. The success of the investigation by the State Criminal Police Offices and the Federal Criminal Police Office shows that the tightening of the law is taking effect and those affected are being confronted with the full severity of the law.
At the same time, Laumann advocated taking “middle ground” in care. On the one hand, “families who look after, nursing services who now really take care of the people in self-sacrificing way, also have good deal of trust” must be placed in them. On the other hand, controls would have to be carried out so systematically that fraudsters would be stopped.
The SPD parliamentary group vice Karl Lauterbach spoke of organized crime with view to the alleged fraud network. Therefore, “we need special investigation services and specialty public prosecutor's offices”, Lauterbach warned in the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. "This must not be repeated under any circumstances, because otherwise it undermines trust in the care and also affects those services that do good job."
Also called for "focus public prosecutors and special investigation groups". "If the identities of the applicants are not checked, it is not surprising that person receives care services several times under different names," criticized Brysch. "It is high time that the care services are billed electronically." In return, the Federal Ministry of Health pointed out that electronic billing has long been possible under current law.
6
0
Do you want a website?