Is cross border healthcare fraud and corruption currently a big issue?
The subject of cross border healthcare is high on EU commission’s agenda and is starting to draw attention from health care partners throughout Europe. Some countries and public and private sector healthcare providers still consider this to be a minor issue and budgetary wise the investments are currently minor. We feel that the issue of fraud and corruption in cross border healthcare has been sidelined and thought as of as a minor problem and not being followed as closely as it should. One of the intentions of the conference was to raise awareness of the issue and we had a number of speakers addressing it from different angles including Willy Palm, a speaker from the European Observatory in Health Care (a spin off from the WHO) who spoke about how EU directive came about. He also spoke about the opportunities and pitfalls it presents to both healthcare consumers and providers and Keith Pollard of Treatment Abroad spoke about the Directive’s impact from a patient’s perspective.
