You may have seen ads by mail, email, phone and on TV for the Medicare enrollment period which starts on Oct. 15 and ends on Dec. 7. That means it’s open season for Medicare and for Medicare scammers.
So how can you know if what you’re hearing is legit?
“If somebody [calls saying] they’re from the government, that they need your information, hang up the phone pretty quickly. Nobody from the government is ever going to be calling you up and asking you for your Social Security, or your medical number or your personal information,” said Ira Rheingold, a consumer attorney with the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
He said the scammer will contact you out of the blue, pretending to be official offering big health discounts. Medicare won’t do that.
“It’s a time when people are relatively vulnerable. Medicare is complicated. Signing up for it can be complicated and scammers know that as well,” Rheingold said.
According to the National Association of Consumer Advocates, identity theft can cause a lot of headaches for people as it hurts your credit scores, costing money and potentially making you lose your job due to false information on your credit record.
Medicare, on estimate, loses $60 billion a year because of fraud, errors and abuse, according to Senior Medicare Patrol. One of the most disturbing frauds is hospice fraud, in which scammers take your information and submit claims for reimbursement of hospice care costs.
Rheingold urges consumers to be careful and do their homework.
“You have friends, you have neighbors who get Medicare already, you should be talking to them. There’s good information out there in all of the counties that we live in and in D.C.,” Rheingold said. “It’s so expensive to get health care. So, when you have the opportunity to sign up for Medicare, you really need to take advantage of it.”
