# Medicare Scams and How to Avoid Them



## SeaBreeze (Nov 13, 2018)

I don't think I'm trusting enough to fall for most scams, especially scammers who call on the telephone.  I might get taken on a billing fraud though, if I'm not careful.   Here's some tips on how to avoid Medicare scams.  Full article here. 



> According to the Coalition  Against Insurance Fraud, scams against government and private health  care insurers form the largest type of insurance fraud – by far. No one  knows exactly how much money is lost through health care fraud, but it  is likely in the tens of billions of dollars a year, the group claims.  In addition, medical identity theft is now one of the top complaints  received by the Federal Trade Commission, CNBC reports.
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> Government  insurance, including Medicare, is a frequent target. Indeed, scammers  are using this year's newly issued Medicare ID cards as a way to steal  identities. The new cards replace Social Security numbers with randomly  generated, 11-character numbers. Scammers posing as Medicare officials  are asking people to pay for the new cards, which are in fact free. Or  they are calling people to say they have a refund coming and need the ID  number and a bank account number to deposit it. These, and many other Medicare scams, are used to steal money or the person's identity and use it for their own medical care or sell it on the black market.
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