How Beneficiaries Can Prevent Medicare Fraud
How Beneficiaries Can Prevent Medicare Fraud Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply. Close
Medicare fraud usually involves rogue health care providers or who for services, equipment or medication that they don’t actually provide, or else inflate the cost of those items. Some will even to justify unnecessary tests, surgeries and other procedures or write prescriptions for patients they’ve never examined. Others use genuine patient information, sometimes obtained through , to create fake claims. Amid the , scammers are targeting beneficiaries with offers of free COVID-19 tests in exchange for their Medicare number or other personal information, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. The data can be used for , and victims could end up bearing the cost of an unapproved test or treatment.
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Here are some other common schemes criminals use to exploit Medicare recipients: Telemarketers call beneficiaries with offers of free state-of-the-art braces to relieve joint pain. Instead, consumers receive a package of ordinary ankle or knee wraps (or nothing at all), but Medicare gets a bill for thousands of dollars.Disreputable home health care agencies try to sign people up for services that Medicare pays for but that they never receive.Unscrupulous clinics steal from Medicare by writing phony prescriptions or ordering unnecessary tests and procedures. Another ploy is providing treatment that Medicare doesn’t pay for and then billing it as a different, covered service. Another scam involves swindlers calling older Americans or showing up at health fairs or senior living communities offering to uncover cancer risks. (They may even mail you a testing kit without prior contact.) The con artists claim Medicare will cover the tests; in reality, Medicare only pays for genetic testing in very limited circumstances, so you could get stuck with a hefty bill. 3 Ways to Protect Your Medicare Account One such scheme netted a for a Florida telemarketer convicted on federal fraud charges in 2021 for his role in a kickback-fueled operation that billed Medicare for more than $3 million for genetic tests. and bill the program for phony prescriptions or unnecessary medical equipment, you could be denied coverage later for drugs or devices you genuinely need. Take these precautions to avoid getting mixed up in Medicare fraud.
Medicare Fraud
Medicare and its are under attack from an army of scammers eager to pillage the program. Their primary aim is to defraud Medicare itself, costing the program billions of dollars a year. Their schemes, however, often rely on targeting beneficiaries directly, stealing their identities or enlisting them as unwitting accomplices.Medicare fraud usually involves rogue health care providers or who for services, equipment or medication that they don’t actually provide, or else inflate the cost of those items. Some will even to justify unnecessary tests, surgeries and other procedures or write prescriptions for patients they’ve never examined. Others use genuine patient information, sometimes obtained through , to create fake claims. Amid the , scammers are targeting beneficiaries with offers of free COVID-19 tests in exchange for their Medicare number or other personal information, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. The data can be used for , and victims could end up bearing the cost of an unapproved test or treatment.
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Here are some other common schemes criminals use to exploit Medicare recipients: Telemarketers call beneficiaries with offers of free state-of-the-art braces to relieve joint pain. Instead, consumers receive a package of ordinary ankle or knee wraps (or nothing at all), but Medicare gets a bill for thousands of dollars.Disreputable home health care agencies try to sign people up for services that Medicare pays for but that they never receive.Unscrupulous clinics steal from Medicare by writing phony prescriptions or ordering unnecessary tests and procedures. Another ploy is providing treatment that Medicare doesn’t pay for and then billing it as a different, covered service. Another scam involves swindlers calling older Americans or showing up at health fairs or senior living communities offering to uncover cancer risks. (They may even mail you a testing kit without prior contact.) The con artists claim Medicare will cover the tests; in reality, Medicare only pays for genetic testing in very limited circumstances, so you could get stuck with a hefty bill. 3 Ways to Protect Your Medicare Account One such scheme netted a for a Florida telemarketer convicted on federal fraud charges in 2021 for his role in a kickback-fueled operation that billed Medicare for more than $3 million for genetic tests. and bill the program for phony prescriptions or unnecessary medical equipment, you could be denied coverage later for drugs or devices you genuinely need. Take these precautions to avoid getting mixed up in Medicare fraud.