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Outpatient Surgery E-Weekly

Contact Congress Over Drug Shortage Issues

A Kentucky congressman is urging surgical facilities to contact their members of Congress and request that they sign his letter demanding changes to...

N.J. Posts ASC Inspection Reports Online

State and federal inspection reports of New Jersey's ASCs are now available online, giving patients an opportunity to make more informed choices abo...

Are Opioids Necessary?

While it's not always practical, or even possible, to eliminate opioids from your post-op pain management regiment, reducing their use in favor of n...

Archive > August, 2004 Vol. V, No. 8

Inside the Rent-a-patient Scam

About 5,000 healthy patients were recruited nationwide and flown to California, where they underwent surgeries that were billed at excessive amounts to their insurance companies.

Andrew Cushman, Contributing Editor

It's early on a Saturday morning in Southern California and Andres Sanchez is eyeing the doctor who is about to cut into him for no reason. As he reclines on the table, so far from home, for hernia surgery on his perfectly healthy stomach, Mr. Sanchez tries to focus on the $800 he was promised for lying about his condition. Imagine the desperation abject poverty can create for poor immigrant workers trying to survive on $200 a week. Facing those odds, Mr. Sanchez, and 5,000 others like him, became willing pawns in what authorities are calling the most unethical insurance scam ever uncovered.

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