Mediscams: How to Spot and Avoid Healthcare Scams, Medical Frauds, and Quackery from the Local Physician to the Major Healthcare Providers and Drug Manufacturers - Hardcover

Chuck Whitlock

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1580631800 ISBN 13: 9781580631808

Publisher: Renaissance Books, 2001

Synopsis

How to spot and avoid healthcare scams, medical frauds, and quackery, from the local physician to the major healthcare providers and drug manufacturers

Phony cancer treatments, HMO incompetence and greed, useless diet creams, worthless "vitamin" pills, and life-endangering "cures" . . . don't get mad, get informed!
A crusading, award-winning investigative reporter for television newsmagazines Extra, Hard Copy, and Inside Edition, Chuck Whitlock leads you into the underworld of MediScams. Here, medical chicanery, good intentions gone bad, and unrepentant greed combine to consume America's healthcare dollars by the billions. Are you in need? The MediScam artists are there with false promises of therapies, cures, and treatments.

"Provocative, disturbing, and refreshingly not sensationalist, this book offers a hard look inside the world of health care and offers specific tips that readers can use to safeguard their health." -Publishers Weekly

A shocking and unnerving work, MediScams blows the whistle on healthcare "professionals" hawking "scientifically proven" treatments that turn out to be fradulent. Whitlock reveals the dirty secrets of health maintenance organizations and pharmaceutical houses. His exposé of the mistreatment of patients and of Medicaid and Medicare fraud has shed light on the seedy underside of nursing home operations. Whitlock is relentless in his pursuit of those who abuse the public trust. And he isn't afraid of pointing out the serious malpractice that goes on even in the offices of "respectable" physicians.

In MediScams, Whitlock gets in the face of:

- supplement manufacturers who cite only selective testing labs and portions of legitimate research to back up their fraudulent claims
- bogus plastic surgeons-particularly the enormous number who operate without licenses or medical degrees
- the research charlatans who recklessly dispense compounds, powders, pills, and placebos
- the carnies and hucksters who live off dental MediScams and nursing home rip-offs
- fraudulent doctors-yours may be one of them

MediScams will scare you, but more importantly, it will make you want to take action. It will show you how easily you may be taken in by those who seem to care. All true and all documented, this book is thoroughly annotated, citing the arrests and convictions of the small percentage of those who get caught. An appendix provides a comprehensive resource list of private, professional, and government agencies that offer information and consumer guidance, along with agencies that help victims of fraud.

About this title

About the Author

Chuck Whitlock is a nationally recognized investigative reporter whose investigations into white-collar crime and exposés of nursing home and Medicare irregularities have garnered him national recognition. A tireless scambuster and consumer advocate, he has appeared on such television shows as Oprah, Hard Copy, and Regis and Kathie Lee. He is currently in negotations with Fox to air his TV show, Crimeline. Whitlock is also the author of five previous books. He lives in southwestern Washington State.

From Publishers Weekly

Maintaining a breathless pace as he relates one horror story after another, Whitlock (Scam School), an investigative reporter for Extra, Hard Copy and Inside Edition, sounds a warning to consumers about the $100-billion-a-year fraudulent medical businessAfrom bogus treatments to unlicensed practitioners, from those who perform unnecessary procedures to bottom-line-oriented managed-care systems that deny care because of cost. These scammers, he says, prey on those who are ill and vulnerable. Particularly interested in exposing fraudulent practices in plastic surgery and dentistry (an area not commonly thought of as being suspect), Whitlock had his teeth checked out by a reputable dental school and was assured that his mouth was in excellent shape. He then went undercover posting as a potential patient whose insurance would soon expire. He received six different estimates (ranging as high as $5,000) from dentists for "preventive dentistry." Whitlock also offers an indictment of profit-making nursing homes that hire unqualified attendants without checking into their background, which leads to serious abuse of the elderly in their care. (Whitlock went undercover again, posing as an inexperienced caretaker with a prison record, and was hired by an elderly-care facility.) Provocative, disturbing and, refreshingly, not sensationalist, this book offers a hard look inside the world of health care and offers specific tips that readers can use to safeguard their health. (Jan.) Forecast: According to Whitlock, 85% of Americans now have health insurance through managed-care organizationsAa huge potential market for this book that will be reached by a national media campaign, including a seven-city author tour. Simultaneous Audio Renaissance release.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Renaissance Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1580631800
• ISBN 13: 9781580631808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304