Health Care Corruption, "No Dirty Little Secret," but "An Open Sore" - Lessons from India for the US

Health care corruption is widely prevalent around the globe, but remains the great unmentionable.Introduction: Global Health Care Corruption We have discussed health care corruption whenever we have an opportunity, but rarely does the topic appear in the English language media or in English language medical and health care journals, particularly in the US.  Some might think that this is because health care corruption is not so prevalent in the US and other "developed" countries.  However, our most read post of all time was about a Transparency International global survey that found that fully 43% of Americans believe our health care is corrupt.  A recent editorial in the BMJ(1) opened thus,Healthcare is a high risk sector for corruption. Best estimates are that between 10% and 25% of global spend on public procurement of health is lost through corruption. This is big bucks. Total global spend on healthcare is more than $7 trillion each year. Corruption takes many forms, depending on the country’s level of development and health financing system. The United States, for example, lost between $82bn and $272bn in 2011 to medical embezzlement, mostly related to its health insurance system. No country is exempt from corruption. Patients everywhere are harmed when money is diverted to doctors’ pockets and away from priority services. Yet this complex challenge is one that medical professionals have failed to deal with, either by choosing to enrich themselves, turn...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest economism health care corruption kickbacks neoliberalism Source Type: blogs