An article published on November 8 stated that the British National Health Service (NHS) provides “universally funded medical services” and has become a symbol of the British welfare system. However, there are many people who "take advantage of the country". Relevant investigation agencies pointed out that in England alone, "medical insurance fraud" causes the British national finance to lose more than 1 billion pounds every year.
The article is excerpted as follows:
Hugh Frith, executive director of the independent investigation agency "NHS Anti-Fraud Agency", said that the investigation found that the perpetrators of medical insurance fraud were both patients and doctors. , health system employees and health care contractors. According to "conservative" estimates by the investigation team, the amount of fraud involved each year amounts to 1.25 billion pounds, accounting for approximately 1% of the NHS's annual budget.
Frith said that the two most serious areas of fraud are that patients lie about medical expenses, such as illegal reimbursement of prescription drugs and dental treatment expenses that are within the scope of self-pay; and the other is the procurement of medical products and services. . Each of these two areas of fraud can cost the exchequer an extra ￡200 million a year.
On the other hand, "false reporting of salary expenses" can cause losses of up to 90 million pounds per year. Some dentists issue false medical bills for NHS patients, which costs the NHS around ￡70 million a year.
Frith said that this type of behavior is "disgraceful" and "this money should be spent on the frontline of medical care serving patients."
The NHS aims to provide all British taxpayers with Unified standard medical insurance is the British government's largest welfare expenditure. However, it has been criticized in recent years for insufficient manpower, low efficiency, waste of resources, and low motivation of medical staff.
According to British media reports, the investigative agency successfully pursued a medical insurance fraud case involving a total amount of 9.6 million pounds in 2016, and there are currently cases worth a total of 30 million pounds pending.