Professional Crime: The Case of Doctors (From The Australian Criminal Justice System: The Mid 1980s, P 97-114, 1986, Duncan Chappell and Paul Wilson, eds. -- See NCJ-110891)

• NCJ Number: 110896
• Author(s): P R Wilson
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examines the nature, causes, and remedies for occupational crime by doctors in Australia.

Abstract

Estimates by the Commonwealth Department of Health indicate that fraud and overservicing are the primary occupational offenses committed by doctors. Based on a variety of studies, this paper briefly describes 15 types of medical fraud and overservicing, followed by a discussion of the professional milieu that fosters such offenses. Although personal acquisitiveness is a factor in medical fraud and overservicing (many persons are attracted to the medical profession because of this trait), other factors are also involved, such as the socialization of physicians, their economic position in the medical marketplace, and the power and influence wielded by their professional organizations in Australian society. Existing procedural mechanisms for investigating and prosecuting doctors accused of fraud and overservicing are cumbersome, overly secretive, and unnecessarily complicated. The use of proper medical manpower planning and the abolition of fee-for-service remuneration would reduce most of the fraud and overservicing reviewed in this study. Prepaid medical plans should be more widely used. In the meantime, traditional methods of computer analysis of physician profiles, investigation of deviant doctors, and more efficient prosecution strategies should be used. 74 footnotes.