December 28, 2006
A federal law that takes effect in January 2007 will require hospitals and nursing homes to teach their employees to detect fraud and to report it to the government.
The law, designed to encourage health care industry employees to become fraud whistleblowers, is apparently not yet well known to health care providers.
According to an article in the December 24, 2006 issue of the New York Times, companies that do at least $5 million a year in Medicaid business must educate all employees and officers on how to detect fraud, waste and abuse. Moreover, health care providers must tell employees that if they report fraud, they will be protected against retaliation and may be entitled to a share of money recovered by the government.