Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Prepare a written discussion of the three major areas of cost associated with white collar crime. Apply your discussion of two examples of healthcare fraud and two examples of computer crime.

The three major areas of cost are social, physical, and economic.
In your question, you asked for two examples of healthcare fraud and two examples of computer crime. I will discuss healthcare fraud first.
Two examples of healthcare fraud are as follows:
1) Denying care or medically necessary procedures to patients through intentional negligence.
Beginning in 1997, Rafael Chikvashvili, the owner of Alpha Diagnostics, asked his nonphysician employees to review X-rays and write up reports. He then billed Medicaid and Medicaid for the false radiology reports. Doctors' names were used fraudulently to allay suspicion.
Two patients died as a result of Chikvashvili's actions (this constitutes a physical cost of white collar crime). Chikvashvili's employees failed to detect congestive heart failure in two patients. Because of this failure, both patients did not get the care they needed and died as a result.
In 2013, Chikvashvili's practice was billing for services that were never performed. In all, the FBI estimates that Chikvashvili may have reviewed tens of thousands of X-rays. He is not a licensed physician and may have caused many deaths during his tenure as a healthcare provider. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
2) Billing for unnecessary prescription drugs and/or services that were never performed.
According to Reuters, more than 400 health professionals in the United States were charged with healthcare fraud in 2017. There is more information at the Department of Justice. For instance, in Florida, 77 defendants made more than $140 million in false billings for home health care, pharmaceutical drugs, and mental health services. This means that the defendants defrauded the government and taxpayers of more than $140 million (the economic cost of white collar crime).
The Department of Justice website (link provided above) lists all of the economic costs from healthcare fraud state by state in 2017. Many of the defendants also contributed to the opioid epidemic by unlawfully distributing narcotic prescriptions to their patients. Read about the social, physical, and economic costs of the opioid crisis at NPR.
Now, let us address computer crime. Two examples are as follows:
1) Phishing is the practice of using false identities to obtain personal information from unsuspecting consumers such as Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. Both consumers and businesses suffer extensive economic and social costs from phishing or identity fraud. Here are some links you might find useful:
Phishing Scams Cost American Businesses Half A Billion Dollars A Year.
Identity theft, fraud cost consumers more than $16 billion in 2017.
2) Internet pornography
This leads to extensive social, economic, and physical costs. Here are two links that may interest you:
How Internet pornography addiction is rewiring our brains.
Internet pornography by the numbers.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/computer_and_internet_fraud

https://www.nhcaa.org/resources/health-care-anti-fraud-resources/the-challenge-of-health-care-fraud.aspx

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