Is there an industry that has more whistleblower retaliation than all the rest? North Carolina whistleblower attorney, Kathryn Abernethy, talks about the most common industry that faces whistleblower retaliation. She also helps talk about why that industry is so ripe for retaliation. This is part of our series of Raleigh lawyer Kathryn Abernethy discussing employment law in North Carolina. For more videos from her, click here. You may also read the transcript of the video below.
Transcript: Are There Common Industries in North Carolina Where You See the Most Whistleblower Retaliation?
Medicine and healthcare are by far where whistleblower retaliation is where I see it most frequently here in North Carolina.
Hospital systems are not kind to employees who raise concerns about, you know, are we properly doing what we’re supposed to be doing in patient care to get the Medicare or Medicaid funds that we are claiming we’re entitled to?
This can be anything from a practice of, say, the federal Medicare program for an hour consultation with a patient when you only spent 10 minutes.
If there’s a pattern of your practice doing that probably you have a problem. Unfortunately, a lot of practices have those kinds of problems where they for convenience or otherwise, they choose a certain billing code to bill Medicare and maybe it’s not the right billing code. Maybe they shouldn’t be getting as much as they’re getting.
So that’s, that is so that is very commonplace. Unfortunately, healthcare organizations are not the greatest about taking that the right way.
When employees raise it and fixing the problem, they tend to double down and blame you know, killing the messenger is basically how I would describe it.
