Social Antecedents of Medical Fraud and Over‐Servicing: What Makes A Doctor Criminal?

Abstract

Medical fraud and overservicing are estimated to cost the Australian community between $130 and $200 million per annum, a figure far greater than the national cost of burglary and almost the same as the total property loss from all conventional crime. An examination of the social antecedents of medical fraud and overservicing suggests that the predisposition of some doctors to engage in these practices occurs because of the following: (1) medical training and professional socialization that orientate student doctors away from ·altruistic health issues towards narrower self-interested professional concerns; (2) career expectations of a high pattern of material consumption that are often frustrated by an increasingly competitive medical market place; and (3) professional medical organizations that lobby for national health policies which reflect the mercenary self-interest of doctors rather than the health interest of the nation.

Mapping the Sociology of Health and Medicine

“…This sociologist produced a significant treatise on the division of labour in medicine (Willis 1983), and subsequently followed an almost exclusive interest in the health sector (Willis 1979(Willis , 1988(Willis , 1994(Willis , 1998Daly et al 1987Daly et al , 1992 The publications of the 1980s reflect a continuing concern with fertility, contraception, and reproduction (Callan 1980;Montague 1980;Mugford and Lally 1980;Betts 1980Betts , 1981Caldwell 1984;Neuendorff 1986;de Lepervanche 1989;Klein 1989). They also indicate an intensification of interest in medicalisation, professionalisation, and medical dominance (Gibson and Boreham 1981;Gibson 1985;Wilson and Gorring 1985;Turner 1986b), in capitalism (Braithwaite 1984), social movements (Osborne 1984), and inequalities such as disabilities (Rubinstein 1982;Rees and Emerson 1983;Sutton and Beran 1983). Relative to the previous decade, far less interest was shown in alcohol and drug abuse, migration, race and ethnicity, religion and deviance.…”