A01=Gilbert Geis
A01=Henry N. Pontell
A01=Paul Jesilow
abortions
american government
american healthcare system
american politics
Author_Gilbert Geis
Author_Henry N. Pontell
Author_Paul Jesilow
case files
Category=JKV
Category=KFFN
Category=MBP
doctors
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
excessive testing
federal government
fee for service policy
fraud
fraud control
guilty doctors
health
health care
illegal behavior
medicaid
medical benefit programs
medical business
medical care
medical insurance
medical profession
medicare
medicine
national health service
needless surgery
overcharging
patients
patterns of abuse
physician practices
program guidelines
self serving
subordinates
violations
Product details
- ISBN 9780520076143
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 05 Jul 1993
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this explosive expose of our health care system, Paul Jesilow, Henry N. Pontell, and Gilbert Geis uncover the dark side of physician practice. Using interviews with doctors and federal, state, and private officials and extensive investigation of case files, they tell the stories of doctors who profit from abortions on women who aren't pregnant, of needless surgery, overcharging for services, and excessive testing. How can doctors, recipients of a sacred trust and sworn to the Hippocratic Oath, violate Medicaid so egregiously? The authors trace patterns of abuse to the program's inauguration in the mid 1960s, when government authorities, not individual patients, were entrusted with responsibility for payments. Determining fees and regulating treatment also became the job of government agencies, thus limiting the doctors' traditional role. Physicians continue to disagree with Medicare and Medicaid policies that infringe on their autonomy and judgment. The medical profession has not accepted the gravity or extent of some members' illegal behavior, and individual doctors continue to blame violations on subordinates and patients.
In the meantime, program guidelines have grown more confusing, hamstringing efforts to detect, apprehend, and prosecute Medicaid defrauders. Failure to institute a coherent policy for fraud control in the medical benefit program has allowed self-serving and greedy practitioners to violate the law with impunity. Prescription for Profit is a shocking revelation of abuse within a once-hallowed profession. It is a book that every doctor, and every patient, needs to read this year.
Paul Jesilow is Assistant Professor, Henry N. Pontell is Professor, and Gilbert Geis is Professor Emeritus, all in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine.
