“When the AG speaks, the department should be listening,” MacDonald

CALGARY — Opposition critics are questioning the provincial Health Department’s sluggish response to calls by Alberta’s auditor general for tougher scrutiny of the $2.2 billion paid each year to doctors.

Despite repeated recommendations over the last decade by the fiscal watchdog, Alberta Health and Wellness said it only started two years ago using sophisticated software to detect physician fraud.

“When the AG speaks, the department should be listening,” Liberal finance critic Hugh MacDonald said.
Instead of spending $4.7 million a year on internal audits the public never sees, MacDonald says the government should give the money to the AG’s office so he can follow up sooner when bureaucrats and politicians ignore his advice.

After the auditor general’s 2006 demand that the department start using sophisticated software to search for inappropriate billing, officials took three years to create a 20-person compliance unit to do the work.
In the interim, a Calgary physician was charging for seeing up to 185 people a day and submitting claims for care to deceased patients, facts that only came to light because of public complaints to the professional body that disciplines doctors.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Alberta+Grits+question+Health+Department+slow+response+overbilling+doctors/5098802/story.html#ixzz1S5Lmvn84