Telephone scammers are bilking Medicare out of billions of dollars, and bombarding millions of older U.S. consumers with multiple daily automated phone calls for everything from “free” back braces to genetic tests.  While Medicare scams have been with us for decades, what’s new is the use of automated calling technology, and the massive international scale ...

Medicare Advantage plans have overcharged Medicare by almost $30 billion in recent years, but so far officials have only recovered a small fraction of that money.  The federal government has announced it is stepping up efforts to recover those funds and TSCL is closely watching to see that it does. The issue is of huge importance ...

By Mary Johnson, editor For years I’ve been getting the same unwanted robo call.  “Hello seniors!” a voice bellows.  “Stand by to learn how you can receive a free back brace covered by Medicare.” This call is a scam. One can’t write about Medicare as I do without learning that Medicare has requirements for everything.  Lots of requirements.  ...

Start watching the mail for your new Medicare card.  The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services will start mailing the cards this month and plans to replace all existing Medicare cards over the next year — by April of 2019. The goal is to prevent fraud and combat identity theft by removing the Social Security numbers ...

The federal government made more than $16 billion in erroneous payments to Medicare Advantage health plans last year. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently testified that nearly 10% of payments to Medicare Advantage plans were improper. Those improper payments are driving up costs not only for Medicare, but also for every person in Medicare Part B ...

Watch Out For Scams! Medicare recently announced that a big change is coming to Medicare cards. To prevent identity theft and to help protect the program from fraud, Medicare will be dropping Social Security numbers from Medicare cards and issuing new cards starting next year. The new cards will have unique, randomly-assigned numbers called a Medicare Beneficiary ...

Can You Identify Medicare Fraud In This Story? A few weeks after a 90-year old woman was moved into an assisted living facility, her daughter was surprised to be told that her mother was a good candidate for hospice.  The move to assisted living was only intended for help with her mother’s daily care, and her ...

By Mary Johnson, editor “Hello seniors!” the voice bellows. “Medicare covers a remarkable new device that can give you freedom from lower back pain! Hold the phone to find out how to get your free, Medicare-covered back brace. ” While free usually sounds good, this call is worse than a pain in the lower backside. It’s ...

In what the U.S. Department of Justice is calling the largest nationwide crackdown on Medicare and Medicaid fraud ever, some 243 people were recently arrested and charged for bilking Medicare out of $712 million. Those charged include 46 doctors, nurses, and other licensed medical professionals. The crackdown was unique not only for its scale, but also ...

By Mary Johnson The Obama Administration and proponents of Obamacare have continued to downplay the cancellations of the health insurance of 4.7 million individual policy-holders (including yours truly) who received notices that our polices would be ending in 2014 because they didn’t comply with the new healthcare law. I was able to temporarily renew my so-called ...