Identifying Disability Fraud

Main Digest

Disability fraud is a major problem world wide. There are millions of people receiving disability assistance from social security, insurance companies, and other institutions all around the world.

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When the allure of easy money comes around, criminals are never too far behind.

Disability fraud can be extremely difficult to detect. Just because someone is able to walk around, drive a car, and perform other daily tasks doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't disabled and legally entitled to disability benefits.

One of the main reasons that disability can be so hard to detect is because of the wide variety of legitimate medical conditions that aren't immediately recognizable to other people who aren't aware of the specific medical condition that the disability beneficiary may have. These types of disabilities are known as "invisible disabilities".

Many people believe that the term "disability" only applies to people who use a walker or a wheelchair.

As I mentioned above, this is simply not the case. In fact, in a 1994-1995 survey, it was found that while roughly 26 million Americans qualified for severe disabilities, however only 1.8 million Americans needed to use a wheelchair or a walker. This means that the vast majority of disability cases are invisible disabilities. This is what makes tracking down and defending against fraud so difficult. Let's take a look at some of the more common types of disability fraud:

Faking Injury or Illness:

The most common type of disability fraud, but it's extremely difficult to detect.

Phantom pains and other disabilities can easily be faked, and there isn't much a doctor can do to prove that the condition doesn't actually exist.

Working While On Disability:

While many people who suffer from disabilities do hold legitimate jobs, there are many people who collect disability benefits, and still perform the exact same job that they're receiving benefits for supposedly not being able to do.

Continuing to Collect Disability Payments:

Another extremely common form of disability fraud, The patient heals, but continues to collect benefits illegally.

For the reasons stated above, disability fraud can be an extremely difficult crime to combat against.

Advances in medical and computer technologies have made combating fraud more effective, but it's still a very difficult form of fraud to enforce against.

Disability fraud is damaging to taxpayers, people with legitimate disabilities, as well as the world economy.

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