For three long, confusing years starting in 2006, upstate New York resident June Smith received Medicare statements showing billing for lab work supposedly processed for her. Smith, a 72-year-old female who's had a hysterectomy, was surprised by the statements, because they were for semen analysis, prostate exams, and pregnancy tests! So she got on the phone to let the Medicare bureaucrats known someone was ripping off the government to the tune of $50,000 in bogus billings. Shockingly, she says they weren't very responsive.
"It's just people behind a desk, I understand," Smith tells the Daily News. "But when you pay for testing of the male anatomy on a woman, I don't know what kind of dumbbells they're hiring... They say, 'If you see something, say something.' Well, I got something in the mail and I said something.' " Smith claims nobody did anything in response to her phone calls and letters, and she finally had to hire an ID theft specialist to help her.
However, a spokesperson for Medicare insists they were on top of it, telling the News, "We regret that Mrs. Smith has the impression that little has been done in response to her complaints." Still, an estimated $60 billion a year in federal health care money is stolen.
