Medicaid Fraud

The case of Dr. William H. Choate points up the fact that welfare and Medicaid fraud hold several factors in common. In both, funds are collected by those not entitled to them. Also in both, the recipients thereby leave less money in the public treasury for the poor who are legally qualified to receive it. Again in both, the state must therefore press for restitution in an attempt to diminish the amount of sorely needed money lost for use by the genuinely needy.

But in the matter of further punishment, especially in the state's recommendation of imprisonment, the illegal collection of Medicaid funds by a physiciam presents society with a dilemma which does not confront it in the case of welfare fraud. For unlike most cases involving welfare fraud, the imprisonment of a physician - which has been recommended by the able prosecutor, Anton J.S. Keating, in the case of Dr. Choate - often deprives society in general and his patients in particular of professional services in short supply. Time lost from practice is therefore punishment for society as well as punishment for the physician.

Whether this is an overriding factor in this instance is, of course, for the court to decide. But it is a factor which suggests that there is no real winner in the prosecution of Medicaid fraud and that closer oversight of the Medicaid program as a preventive measure should be undertaken.

Reprinted from The Evening Sun Saturday, July 12, 1980.