It’s never worth it, taking liberties with the laws governing your practice. We all lose: starting with you, including anyone you involve in dishonest activities, and finally, most destructively, the profession itself.
There is a real price paid. When physiotherapy’s reputation is damaged, employers and insurance companies respond, cutting back on benefits and access to care for everyone, due to the few.
Think you’re doing a favour for someone unable to afford treatment, when you submit for coverage services that were never rendered by a PT (but still use his or her registration number)?
Feel good covering for a peer who’s had their license suspended, but wants to keep taking on patients and billing – under your name? Well, professional obligations supersede both philanthropy and personal loyalty.
As a result of an ongoing investigation started two years ago, so far 73 TTC employees have lost their jobs in connection with coordinated abuse of insurance benefits. More recently, Toronto’s auditor general Beverly Romeo-Beehler found 17 city employees claiming more than $10,000 worth of physiotherapy in one year.
She recommended insurer Manulife tighten requirements to prevent more false claims.
The College takes these situations very seriously. Our Committees who make discipline decisions now maintain a zero tolerance policy for bad business practices, and do not hesitate to mete out severe consequences where they are warranted. If you are an offender, your suspension can last months. And whomever you entangle, unwitting or not, is held accountable if their registration number is compromised.
Any payoff for violating your professional reputation will be short-lived, or revoked. But poor choices reverberate indefinitely.