What is the cost of health care fraud?
Various estimates indicate that from 2 to 10% of every health care dollar in North America is lost to fraud. In Canada, over $120 billion is spent annually on health care. That would mean that cost of health care fraud could surpass $12 billion each year. These figures represent enough money to drastically revitalize Canadian medicare and purchase more than 3000 MRI machines. However, the cost of health care fraud goes well beyond the numbers. The perpetrators of some types of fraud schemes deliberately and callously place their trusting patients at serious risk of injury or death. At the same time, an inaccurate health record is created which may impact a patient's future insurability and employability and can be extremely difficult to correct.
