The Fraud Is Real!

Medicare fraud is rampant in the United States, and unfortunately, most seniors don’t know how to recognize it or do anything about it.

Believe the biggest fraud is billing for services not performed. Happens daily. The reason is that it is fraudulent billing by the providers. I am not saying all billing is fraudulent, but it is happening so frequently that it cannot be disregarded.

As an example, while in the hospital, there are many charges and the average senior never looks at the bill. An easy way to pad the bill. If seniors looked at the bill, they could tell what services were not performed. Some are simple errors based on a lack of communication between the service provider and the billing department. Others are fraudulent and that needs to stop. We all have a responsibility to review our bills to see if anything should not be included.

Of course, the average senior does not understand the billing, but you can spot something that is wrong. Since there are many ways to have Medicare, each comes with different circumstances, but they all need to be reviewed.

1. Original Medicare without either a supplement or MAPD plan-Since the senior is responsible for the 20% that Medicare doesn’t pay; you should review each bill and ask questions when something doesn’t appear to be correct or misleading.

2. Original Medicare and a supplement-If Medicare missed something the supplement carrier will examine the bill and report anything they view as suspicious. That doesn’t mean the seniors should not review the bill as well.

3. MAPD plan-This is where the insurance company is paying the bills and they do examine all charges. That doesn’t absolve the senior from reviewing them as well. We are all human and can make mistakes.

It’s really very simple to review your bill for errors and report them.

The Barend Agency Inc. Len Barend, broker 702-250-2200 cell.