Thursday, June 20, 2013

Experts claim that Fraud and Waste is rampant in Federal Worker Disability Program

A postal worker who ran marathons found her race times improved after she began drawing federal disability checks for an alleged back injury. 
Another disabled federal employee went scuba diving, skied in Switzerland and did flips on a trapeze. She spent part of her $193,000 in disability payments on a boat named "Free Ride" before she was caught. 
A Justice Department lawyer collected $90,000 in annual disability checks after claiming the stress of his job kept him off the job. Apparently the cable TV show he began hosting while drawing disability pay wasn't so stressful.
Then there was the civilian Navy employee who owned and operated a "gentleman's club" while on disability. 
Those people were caught scamming the system and cheating taxpayers. Most scammers are not. 
Rooting out fraud by federal workers who claim disabilities due to work-related injuries is a low priority at most agencies, according to years of probes by government investigators. 
[...]
The Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) disability fund created nearly a century ago costs taxpayers more than $3 billion per year, including about $2.1 billion in direct payments for lost wages and the rest for things like medical treatment and death benefits. 
No one knows how much fraud is occurring. The Department of Labor, which administers FECA for 70 federal entities, doesn't track fraud referrals and convictions, which can be pursued through DOL or by agencies on their own...
Read the full story HERE and view a related video Below:



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