Report Healthcare Fraud and Abuse

If you’ve experienced dental fraud or abuse, it’s important to take action. Our page provides valuable resources and links to help you report misconduct by dentists, as well as information on how to protect yourself and your rights as a patient.

Whether you’ve been a victim of unnecessary procedures, insurance fraud, or other misconduct, we’re here to help. With our comprehensive resources, you can take control of the situation and get the justice you deserve. Don’t suffer in silence – visit our page to report dental fraud or abuse today.

Contacting Insurance Provider

At this point I would assume you have already contacted your insurance provider to dispute charges, and they have come back and said they are valid charges from your dentist. If you are an unlucky one like my roommate, the dentist has probably already sent you to collections, and now you are disputing charges with a collections agency or the credit bureaus.

This time instead of calling your insurance provider to dispute charges, request to speak to a member of their fraud department to make a formal complaint and have them begin an investigation for fraud by one of their providers.

Below is a list of some insurance contacts for reporting fraud waste / abuse. If your insurance provider is not on the list you can easily find them by going to google and searching for: Insurance company report fraud

Patient Rights

I feel a lot of patients do not understand their rights, or the resources at their fingertips. Every doctor should follow certain ethics and code of conduct to be licensed in the state of California. Doctor’s face the risks of both Criminal and Civil court proceedings.

The easiest way to start a criminal investigation, is to contact your local police department and request to speak to an investigator/detective to open a case on a local dentist and give them your details.
After contacting your local police department the next steps would be to report them to the various state dental medical boards as well as government agencies that handle consumer complaints.

One dentist that I was researching, had multiple complaints filed against them in the state of Nevada before moving to California. After the Nevada dental state board conducted their research, they found that the dentist was in the wrong and was required to pay restitution to all the patients that where in the suit. The dentist was required to pay back to the patients fees that were charged for un-needed services as well as remove fee’s the dentist said was owed collections on.

Dental Management Company Benevis and Its Affiliated Kool Smiles Dental Clinics to Pay $23.9 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations Relating to Medically Unnecessary Pediatric Dental Services

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dental-management-company-benevis-and-its-affiliated-kool-smiles-dental-clinics-pay-239

Filing false claims may result in fines of up to three times the programs’ loss plus $11,000 per claim filed. Under the civil FCA, each instance of an item or a service billed to Medicare or Medicaid counts as a claim, so fines can add up quickly.

https://oig.hhs.gov/compliance/physician-education/fraud-abuse-laws/
Healdsburg Police

Healdsburg police have a detective unit that is open during business hours.

Website
Phone: (707) 431-3145

ADA – American Dental Association

https://www.ada.org/resources/practice/legal-and-regulatory/fraud-and-abuse

Medicare/Medicaid

https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Components/CPI/CPIReportingFraud
https://www.medicare.gov/basics/reporting-medicare-fraud-and-abuse
https://www.medicare.gov/fraud

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

https://oig.hhs.gov/compliance/physician-education/fraud-abuse-laws/

California Department of Consumer Affairs

The DCA investigates consumer complaints on issues under its jurisdiction. If violations are found, license holders can face discipline that may include probation, suspension or revocation of a license, fines and citations, letters of reprimand, cease and desist orders, or criminal charges.
You can file complaints at: https://www.dca.ca.gov/consumers/complaints/dbc.shtml

CA Attorney General

https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

FTC – Report Fraud

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/

Click on Report Fraud -> Health -> Any Other Healthcare Problem

U.S. DOJ – Civil Division

https://www.justice.gov/civil/practice-areas-0

To report health care fraud call 1-800-HHS-TIPS (1-800-447-8477) or complaint online at: https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/report-fraud/index.asp