Dutch health insurance companies identified fraudulent health insurance bills totalling €9.4m last year, up on third on 2012.

Most of the problematic bills referred to personal healthcare budgets given to the disabled to help pay for home care. However, both hospitals and pharmacies were also implicated in fraud, the insurers’ organisation ZN said.

In total health insurers say they saved €356m by checking invoices. Most of the problems were genuine mistakes involving wrong codes and fees.

Over-charging

Health insurers have been told by health minister Edith Schippers to increase their checks on hospital bills to make sure patients are not being over-charged.

The minister has also said that all patients should be given copies of their treatment bills so they can also check for over-charging. Currently, in most cases, hospital bills are sent directly to insurers.

The crackdown followed a case in which a man was charged over €1,000 for having his ears syringed.