Palm Beach Post Receives National Recognition for Insurance Fraud Coverage

Washington-based policy and research group, Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, has awarded its inaugural journalism award for fraud reporting to The Palm Beach Post for its work on fraud in the sober-home industry. The award honored Post coverage dating back to 2015 when Post investigators Christine Stapleton and Pat Beall first wrote about how sober-home operators were defrauding insurers of millions of dollars for urine drug tests.

Sober homes were requiring residents to be tested every day, creating multimillion-dollar business empires. Palm Beach County treatment centers and affiliated labs were charging as much as $2,000 for urine tests that can be purchased for $25 at a drug store.

In 2016, a team of Post reporters and editors, including Stapleton, Beall, Lawrence Mower, Joe Capozzi, John Pacenti, Barbara Marshall and Mike Stuck produced “Heroin: Killer of a Generation,” a 12-page special section of stories about 216 men, women and teenagers who died of a heroin-related overdoses in Palm Beach County in 2015. One in 10 had died in a sober home.

The Post’s reporting played a role in the prosecution of sober-home operators Kenneth Chatman and Eric Snyder as well as the successful push to tighten state laws which have resulted in more than 40 people on charges related to brokering patients.

Congratulations to the Palm Beach Post on this national recognition for their work in fighting insurance fraud.

Click here for full article.