Colin May on Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Fraud [Podcast]

By Adam Turteltaub There’s a car pulling up to your facility loaded up with a patient and a trunk full of risk. Non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) plays an important role in getting elderly and poor patients to their medical appointments and pharmacies. But, explains Colin May, Professor of Forensic Studies and Criminal Justice at Stevenson University, the amount of fraud is exploding. There are cases of billing when service was not provided, trips to facilities that are closed, overbilling, upcoding, overcharging for tolls, and more. Enforcement authorities have been doing more to crackdown on this fraud, but providers need to be on the lookout for a host of schemes, including kickbacks. Frontline employees, he argues, should be trained to look out for questionable, unusual situations that may be the sign that something improper is happening. Technology can also be deployed in areas such as pre-trip screening. Listen in to learn more about this growing problem and what your organization could and should be doing about it.