Posted by J.L. on March 18, 1999 at 00:39:00:
In Reply to: The Media -Fraudulent Claims Exploitation- Prejudice posted by Tony W on March 16, 1999 at 22:24:01:
I heard from an attorney that worker comp fraud by employees was less than 6% a few years ago. (Don't edit me, Webmaster) This surprised me. How could anyone be costing the system money if they know it's fraud? Then I found out how much fraud is committed by EMPLOYERS by misclassifying employees on their job descriptions(WC premium fraud), underreporting payroll, under estimating employment premium projections and declaring employees as "independent contractors." Employer fraud outcosts claimant fraud by 4-1! If they started throwing fraudulent workers in jail they'd be bunking with all their former employers!
Accountants don't make for good videos so those "real tv" shows aren't going to show the four neckties doing their white collar crime but they'll run some old footage of that guy falling off the roof.
When you consider all the work injuries that go unreported and get paid by personal insurance or even untreated and all the just claims that are denied, it becomes clear that claimant fraud becomes statistically moot in terms of costing money.
Medical fraud includes creative billing, self-referrals, upcoding, unbundling, product switching, collusion and kickbacks.
I got some of these facts from Workers Comp Fraud: The Real Story, July 1998 by the Labor Research Association.