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Studies on cases of whistleblowing
Arguments for and against whistleblowing
Arguments for and against whistleblowing
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Recommended: Studies on cases of whistleblowing
Whistleblowing and Sarbanes-Oxley
Introduction
When a whistleblower hears that a person in the organization is deceitful, being fraudulent, take things that does not belong to them or is untruthful, he is astounded that this behavior goes on in the workplace. The seriousness of the offensive and being certain that the offensive happened are determining factors of whether to take a chance at blowing the whistle. The situational characteristics rather than personal ones, (Meredith, 2014).
Key characteristics of a Whistleblower
The whistleblower is a type of displaced dissenter who believes that the only way that corrective action will be taken is through external intervention. These individuals tend to be high performers with strong moral values,
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The VNSNY provides services for the elderly, disabled and low income people of New York. Their services include nursing care, rehabilitation and behavioral health therapy, and end of life services to those of all ages. The lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Acts of both state and federal law. It charges that for financial gain, the agency “intentionally ignored” the plans of care prescribed by physicians, providing only a fraction of the nursing and rehabilitation visits that had been ordered under Medicare, which pays a set rate for an “episode of care.” The practice seriously endangered the welfare of patients, the lawsuit charges, and resulted in needless …show more content…
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) protects employees who provide information to, cause information to be provided to, or assist in an investigation by a federal regulatory or law enforcement agency, or a member of Congress or an internal investigation by the company related to fraud. An employee that has been retaliated against can file an enforcement action with the U.S. Department of Labor within 180 days of the violation, (Pirrone, 2015, pgs. 95-97). Mr. Lacy would have been protected under the federal statues if he was still employed with the VNSNY.
Conclusion
Mr. Lacey brought a lawsuit against VNSNY that alleges that millions of dollars were gained through false claims to Medicaid and Medicare because the company was billing for services that were not rendered to its clients, even though those clients needed the services. This case is in the beginning stages and with the evidence documented by Mr. Lacey, I am hoping for VNSNY will be ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines as well as compensate the clients that was intentionally ignored of their plans prescribed by their physicians.
Pozgar, G.D. (2012). Legal Aspects of Health Care Administration. United States of America: Jones and Bartlett Learning, LLC.
In addition, Guardiola claims that the improperly billed claims were caused by “inadequate clinical documentation to support inpatient claims, internal processes designed to improperly assign inpatient admission status, antiquated computer systems that generated false claims, and a lack of review to ensure appropriate inpatient status assignments” (Guardiola v. Renown Health, 2014). It is noted that the plaintiff Guardiola discovered the alleged insufficiencies and claimed she brought it to the attention of management, but Renown takes no action to correct the problem and did nothing to prevent it from happening. The plaintiff claims that management at Renown directed, encouraged and facilitated the deceitful action to be continued against
First I will be telling you about the pressure of being a “whistleblower”. In Fahrenheit 451 the pressure of being a “whistleblower” is so real, everyone is told to rat out everyone who has a book in their household, if they find out they have a book in the home it is burned to the ground. This is related to our society because we are pressured to do what is right, and part of my belief system is to do what is right and to point out what is wrong. For example if someone were to gossip behind their back I would try to stand up and tell them it is wrong and tell the person what the others said
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was drafted to encourage and protect whistleblowers from retaliation after the fraud scandal that cause the collapse of Enron in 2001. In a 2010 Senate Report found that “external auditors detected only 4.1 percent of uncovered fraud schemes, “whistleblower tips detected 54.1% of uncovered fraud schemes in public companies” and were thirteen times more effective than external audits” (Turpan, 2016). Whistleblowers serve an important service to the public and are more effective than external audits. The CFAA has been used to by employers to retaliate against employees who act as informants for agencies like Internal Revenue Service or Security Exchange Commission to expose fraud. There employees, not to their financial gain, gather information as evidence of fraud by the company. With a broad interpretation of CFAA, the employee would "exceed their authority" and was "unauthorized" to access the information, therefore allowing the company to hide their illegal
Throughout the past several years major corporate scandals have rocked the economy and hurt investor confidence. The largest bankruptcies in history have resulted from greedy executives that “cook the books” to gain the numbers they want. These scandals typically involve complex methods for misusing or misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of assets or underreporting of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other corporations (Medura 1-3). In response to the increasing number of scandals the US government amended the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002 to mitigate these problems. Sarbanes Oxley has extensive regulations that hold the CEO and top executives responsible for the numbers they report but problems still occur. To ensure proper accounting standards have been used Sarbanes Oxley also requires that public companies be audited by accounting firms (Livingstone). The problem is that the accounting firms are also public companies that also have to look after their bottom line while still remaining objective with the corporations they audit. When an accounting firm is hired the company that hired them has the power in the relationship. When the company has the power they can bully the firm into doing what they tell them to do. The accounting firm then loses its objectivity and independence making their job ineffective and not accomplishing their goal of honest accounting (Gerard). Their have been 379 convictions of fraud to date, and 3 to 6 new cases opening per month. The problem has clearly not been solved (Ulinski).
Jacobson, P. (1999, July/August). Legal challenges to managed care cost containment programs: an intital assessment. Courts & Managed Care, 69-85.
Although Hollate introduced a compliance program and code of conduct when it went public, the programs were put on “the back burner”. This outcome is not surprised for that the company does not pay attention to the programs. It is, therefore, important to “reinforce the values” and “employee a boundary system when actions are inconsistent with the code of conduct” for the purpose of early detection. Tyco provides a good example after its scandal, by initiating “mandatory annual compliance training for all its employees worldwide” and creating the Tyco Guide to Ethical Conduct to familiarize employees with company expectations and help them make ethical decisions. As tips is the most useful method for internal and external sources to detect frauds, the whistleblower hotline should be well communicated with encouragement on reporting any suspicious activity. In addition, to improve the effectiveness of the compliance program and code of conducts, Hollate should implement management monitoring and evaluation on a regular
About Fraud. (n.d.). Retrieved from Stop Medicare Fraud The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Justice: http://www.stopmedicarefraud.gov/aboutfraud/index.html
b. Frederick Elliston states the three different situations surrounding whistleblowing. The first being public whistleblowing, the second anonymous whistleblowing, and the third whistleblowing to a leader or trusted supervisor. Each of these situations have pros and cons, and have a appropriate situation with respective possible dangers and consequences, along with the appropriate seriousness of the situation. Another point Elliston brings up is that with anonymous whistleblowing being an option, there is the chance that the information may be false, or that the person leaking the information may be doing so for they’re own gain, instead of the best interest of the
There are numerous amounts of billing codes within the Medicare system. Many have the same codes to one medical piece of equipment. If a biller tries to make a claim for a device, such as a wheelchair and walker, and the claim was denied based on excessive usage of that particular code because of its geographic region, then the biller can easily resubmit the claim using an alternative code that will allow the claim to go through with minor alternations to the device (AGHAEGBNO, 2001). The biller can complete this task several times until the claim is satisfied. The biller can also bill for services that were not provided in order to receive higher payments from health care providers. These are forms of multiple, double and improper billing abuses that are defrauding the system tremendously. Health care claims are coming in quickly and some payments are even expedited and reused to medical provide...
Corruption is a persistent problem that plagues the world and it knows no boundaries. Transparency International defines it as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (2013). For the purposes of this thread, ‘corruption’ is defined as any individual, collective, or structural act or process that permits the use of public authority or position for private gain. This definition captures the broad and many ways individuals and institutions abuse power and the public trust. In regard to whistleblowing, much conflict stems from the context in which the whistleblower is viewed.
The Company will not retaliate against a whistleblower. This includes, but is not limited to, protection from retaliation in the form of an adverse employment action such as termination, compensation decreases, or poor work assignments and threats of physical
Taylor, E. and Curtis, M. 2010. An Examination of the Layers of Workplace Influences in Ethical Judgements: Whistleblowing Likelihood and Perseverance in Public Accounting. Journal of Business Ethics [Online], 93(1), pp. 21-37 Available from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-009-0179-9 [Accessed 29 April 2014]
By inducting ethical business practices, the need for whistleblowers will not be needed, but there is always someone that crosses the line. Therefore, by encouraging whistleblowing and supervised departmental and corporate performance concerning ethical questions. Whistleblowing is an ethical procedure when there is clear evidence of serious evidence, that will harm the public and the blower has tried to find an internal solution to effect change. The whistleblower who is associated with the unethical activity has a moral responsibility to do the right thing. Companies always know there is a possibility that the whistle will be blown, in this case the obstacle is created by knowledge that their employees stand to gain an advantage from uncovering corporate misbehaviour and thus they may be proactively looking for other people outside the organization to inform the authorities.
Whistle blowing is an attempt of an employee or former employee of a company to reveal what he or she believes to be a wrongdoing in or by a company or organization. Whistle blowing tries to make others aware of practices that are considered illegal or immoral. If the wrongdoing is reported to someone in the company it is said to be internal. Internal whistle blowing tends to do less damage to the company. There is also external whistle blowing. This is where the wrongdoing is reported to the media and brought to the attention of the public. This type of whistle blowing tends to affect the company in a negative way because of bad publicity. It is said that whistle blowing is personal if the wrongdoing affects the whistle blower alone (like sexual harassment), and said to be impersonal if the wrongdoing affects other people. Many people whistle blow for two main reasons: morality and revenge.