Health care fraud and corruption in Europe: an overview

Preventing, detecting, and ultimately putting an end to health care fraud and corruption is important to ensure that scarce health sector resources are put to good use. This article provides an overview of fraud and corruption in Europe by focusing on how they are defined and how health care systems are affected. Fraud and corruption can be committed by patients, providers, payers, or anyone else involved in the health care sector. To combat these activities, anti- fraud organisations follow a chronological process to deter, identify, investigate, and punish criminals. Losses due to fraud and corruption in Europe have been estimated at up to €56 billion per year or over 5% of national health budgets.