Skyrocketing spending on skin substitutes: A message for primary care

There is a lot of money involved with health care, and some people who want it may recruit physicians to help with fraudulent schemes. Doctors should be wary — if a treatment or payment deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. David Tawes, MA, regional inspector general in the Baltimore, Maryland, HHS-OIG Office of Evaluation and Inspections, offers this message.

Medical Economics: Our main audience is primary care physicians. What would you like to say to them, or what would you like them to know?

David Tawes, MA: So, these products have been heavily marketed even outside of the wound care community. There's people that will post on Reddit or other forums that are, like, hey, somebody approached me today, a nurse practitioner said somebody approached me today and said, I could make all this money, like, by applying skin substitutes. Promises like that, be wary. If you hear something that sounds sketchy or too good to be true, it's probably not on the up and up. So if you see something like this, you can submit a complaint to OIG online through our website or call 1-800-HHS-TIPS.