Avoiding Medical Fraud Part-2

What Are The Promises and Claims

This is the second question to ask in detecting a medical fraud. Are they vague and misleading? A typical advertisement urges purchase of a product “containing an ingredient recommended by doctors”. This is intended to deceive and to hide a medical fraud; the advertiser knows that if the ingredient where named, you would recognize it to be relatively ineffective for the problem or readily available at less expense.

Beware of the testimonials, coupons and guarantees. If a product or a service is advertised by testimonials, it is probably of marginal value or lower which usually happen if there’s a medical fraud. A testimonial will consist of ”before and after” pictures. It may be a story told by a presumed patient relating success with the treatment. On occasion, testimonials will be totally fabricated, another favorite of a hustler in a medical fraud. However, even if the testimonial is accurate, it provides no reliable information. Your interest is not the proposed service has ever help anyone but whether it is likely to help you. There is an important difference in these statements. You must read between the lines to detect medical frauds.

Coupons are another clue to bad services. Worthwhile services are not marketed thru magazines and newspaper coupons, medical frauds are. “Guarantees” in medicine are almost a guarantee that a product or service is worthless. In medicine, guarantee is not possible. There are always exceptions as well as possibilities of unfortunate results. Not a worthwhile medical service is accompanied by a money back guarantee. Thus, it isn’t that the guarantee will not be honored (which probably also the case) but that the offer itself strongly suggests a suspicious product or medical fraud.