Medicaid Fraud: The Effect On North Carolina's Injured Workers

A Monroe doctor has agreed to pay nearly $1 million dollars to the N.C. Medicaid program for defrauding Medicaid. According to authorities, Dr. Millicent Francis-Lane submitted requests to Medicaid for reimbursements for procedures she actually didn't perform between 2003 and 2009. Dr. Francis-Lane's settlement is a result of the U.S. Attorney for Charlotte and the Western District of North Carolina's pursuit to uphold the False Claims Act, a program intended to protect Medicaid and other programs from fraud.

Defrauding Medicaid and other health care programs presents a growing obstacle to the public's access to health care. These health care programs are taxpayer funded, meaning their resources are not infinite. Furthermore, a large amount of people rely on the services provided by these health care programs. As fraud increases, their resources deplete, meaning the programs cannot meet the need for their services. In other words, the availability of these health care programs decrease, the services they provide decrease, and the public's access to health care and quality services further decrease.