For two days now the Post has reported on street hawkers who lure Meidcaid recipients to dental clinics, offering cash payments to don the bib—today it turned its focus to the allegedly fraudulent doctors. Billing Medicaid $29 for oral exams, $58 for teeth X-rays, $58 for cleanings and $14 for fluoride treatments, dentists pay the patients around $15-20 per visit, and usually give the shills $10 per person they bring in.
According to a spokeswoman for the government program, cash payments to patients are absolutely not okay, though gifts "worth up to $10" (stick-on earrings or wind-up chompy teeth) are allowed. Though the hawkers advertise blatantly on Harlem street corners, yelling things like "Dentist, dentist, dentist! Get paid to go to the dentist!," it calls the scamming operation "covert" and says investigators "still don't know the extent of the fraud."
