Dr Margaret Faux is back spruiking her take on Medicare, private health insurance and medical bills, errors and fraud, but this time, she’s not in the media, she is the media.
Dr Margaret Faux, who first became a national figure in October 2022, when a joint investigation by ABC’s 7.30, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age aired claims that Medicare “leakage” – made up of fraud, waste and billing errors combined – could account for close to 30% of the scheme’s annual budget (or an estimated $8 billion a year) has launched a Substack newsletter titled “Follow the Money” in which she states that now she believes the 30% figure was “far too low”.
Dr Faux, a nurse and now lawyer who runs medical billing company Synapse Medical Services and holds a PhD examining how doctors learn to bill Medicare, was the 2022 investigation’s central expert voice.
The 30%, $8 billion figure triggered immediate and sustained pushback from medical groups and individual doctors, who argued the estimate was unsubstantiated and wildly overstated actual fraud (as distinct from honest billing errors).
A significant strand of the criticism was that the $8 billion figure didn’t actually appear anywhere in Dr Faux’s PhD thesis.
Her thesis instead cited a much older 2012 estimate of non-compliant billing between $1.2–3.6 billion, and was a qualitative study of doctors’ billing knowledge, not a quantitative fraud audit.
Critics argued the ABC coverage had blurred the distinction between her peer-reviewed academic research and her separate, personal professional estimate, leaving the impression the larger figure was independently research-backed when it wasn’t.
The backlash extended beyond public criticism. Formal complaints were lodged with AHPRA and the NSW Law Society, and calls were made for her PhD to be revoked and for AHPRA to take action against her registration. No public disciplinary outcome has resulted from either.
A personal perspective
Faux’s opening edition of her newsletter airs a lot of the history from her personal perspective.
She claims she “was publicly humiliated, lampooned and vilified. An online anti-Margaret chatbot campaign sent me trending on X (then Twitter) for all the wrong reasons. Hate mail poured in. The threats became serious enough that I reported them to police.
“For almost a month I was too frightened to leave my house.
“We installed security cameras. My husband even sought quotes for bulletproof glass because we were genuinely worried someone might shoot through my office window.”
“Nothing prepares you for something like that.
“It changed me forever. I see public shaming differently now because I know what it feels like when thousands of strangers decide who you are without knowing you. You also discover who your true friends are. Some people disappear. I lost one friendship that I thought would last a lifetime.
“But I was one of the lucky ones. My family and friends stood by me. They carried me through a period that I hope nobody else ever has to experience.
“That was the price of speaking publicly about Medicare fraud. Of telling the truth.
“It was ugly”.
Patients provide dirt on doctors who attacked her
Faux then explains why she chose the independent newsletter format.
She says that amid all the controversy she started receiving messages “from patients, nurses, medical billers, hospital staff, health fund employees and honest doctors”.
“Some of the patients who contacted me were patients of the very doctors who attacked me the loudest. Their messages said things like this:
“You know Dr X? I’ve been her patient for years. After watching 7:30 I checked my Medicare records. Guess what? I found she’d been claiming Medicare for services she never provided”.
“Others found claims for exaggerated services (a common type of healthcare fraud) such as a 6–20-minute face-to-face consult which was, in truth, a 30 second telephone call for a repeat script.”
Faux says Australians “recognise…gaslighting” when they see it.
“Yet they’re left trying to navigate a system that is almost impossible to understand. They’re expected to sign quotes worth thousands of dollars in a system that practically requires a law degree to navigate,” she says.
“This is why I’m doing this. Patients deserve better. Accessing healthcare shouldn’t be this hard or this expensive. But until we confront fraud, waste and abuse, out-of-pocket costs will keep climbing and patients will keep paying the price for a system that is failing them”.
The “f*** off” life stage
She then says:
“At this stage of my life, I’ve reached what I affectionately call my “f*** off” stage.
“It’s my favourite stage by far.
“I’m no longer interested in staying quiet to make other people comfortable.
“I’ve seen too much, heard too many shocking stories, and helped too many patients who had nowhere else to turn.
“If I know what’s happening and choose to say nothing, then I’m part of the problem.
“That would make me complicit.
“I won’t be.
“So, I’m starting this newsletter.”
She concludes with a taster of what’s to come in subsequent editions of her Substack.
“I always believed my 30% estimate was about right—if anything, conservative. I now know it was far too low,” she says.
“But that’s a story for another day”.
Presumably starting in coming editions of her new media venture?
It’s pretty good newsletter marketing.
If you want to see Faux’s first newsletter and maybe subscribe or pledge your support, you can do that HERE.
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