Section/Fraud

Fraud

Charges of fraud are not new to psychiatry. By their own admission, psychiatrists are unable to define mental illness, yet the profession routinely receives billions in government and private funding for meting out costly, harmful and debilitating treatments.

PUBLICATIONS AND INFORMATION

CCHR’s publications provide hard facts and historical perspective on psychiatric fraud.

PSYCHIATRY’S FRAUDULENT SCHEMES

This publication provides numerous examples of how psychiatrists financially defraud mental health care providers.

MENTAL HEALTH CRIMINAL TRACKING SYSTEM

This database offers the first international system for tracking psychiatrists and psychologists and mental health workers who have been criminally charged or are currently under investigation for criminal or medical misconduct. The searchable database also contains information on various ongoing state and federal agency investigations into psychiatric facilities.

WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS

Millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted each year on ridiculous and frivolous “mental health” studies that yield no results, do nothing to better our lives, and are frequently based solely on the study of rats, lizards and other animals far outside of the human species.

WHAT MEDICAL AND OTHER EXPERTS SAY

Law enforcement, government and mental health authorities describe the mechanics of psychiatric fraud.

RECOMMENDED READING

CCHR’s recommended reading on the subject of psychiatric fraud.

Fraud Cont.

Charges of fraud are not new to psychiatry. By their own admission, psychiatrists are unable to define mental illness, yet the profession routinely receives billions in government and private funding for meting out costly, harmful and debilitating treatments.

 
CCHR’s intention is to provide lawmakers, legislators, doctors, educators, law enforcement agents, health insurers and businessmen with accurate information on the scope of the waste and fraud within the psychiatric industry.

Heading the list of those most frequently defrauded by psychiatry are the government officials throughout the world who have, in effect, granted psychiatry a monopoly over mental health.

Here are just a few examples:

In Australia, one psychiatrist was criminally charged with claiming more than $1 million (US$665,500) in Medicare insurance payments by writing out fake referrals of patients to himself. The fraud also included psychotherapists and psychiatrists charging the government’s Medicare insurance for having sex with patients.

A scandal rocked Japan after the discovery that private psychiatric hospitals were forcibly incarcerating and illegally restraining patients, falsifying medical records and inflating the numbers of doctors and nurses in the facilities to obtain more money from the government. Several psychiatrists were convicted of and jailed for fraud.

In Ticino, Switzerland, police raided three private psychiatric hospitals, arresting Dr. Renzo Realini, psychiatrist and owner of the facilities, for fraud and falsifying documents after records showed that the hard-working Realini had been billing for 30-hour days.

 
In France, the executive director of a psychiatric nursing home was investigated in 1999 for fraud, falsifying checks, breach of trust and taking advantage of psychologically dependent patients to obtain their property.

In the United States, in one of the largest health care fraud suits in history, National Medical Enterprises paid $379 million to the U.S. Justice Department. NME was ultimately forced to settle fraud and abuse suits which encompassed more than $740 million in claims.

Mental health fraud knows no geographical boundaries. Similar violations of medical ethics have been found in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, South Africa, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.