Medicare billing fraud points to double-standard in care

The Dallas Morning News published a two-day installment in its ongoing investigation into allegations of Medicare billing fraud and poor patient care at one of the nation's leading medical schools and its teaching hospital in Dallas. Among The News' findings: Faculty at UT Southwestern were letting resident doctors-in-training treat the hospital's mostly poor, minority patients with little or no supervision, leading to consequences like bungled surgeries and misdiagnoses. One administrator was quoted as saying in a faculty meeting it was "okay" for residents to make mistakes. But at two hospitals owned by the school for mostly privately insured patients, residents weren't allowed the same freedoms, prompting concerns about "two tier" care.