Confusion over upcoming changes in the nation’s health care system is resulting in a sudden spike in health insurance scams by people attempting to bilk the public by offering everything from fake health insurance policies to phony Medicare cards.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is reporting that the federal government received nearly 83,000 complaints of “imposter scams” last year, an increase of 12 percent from the year before.
“America’s rife with health scams,” says James Quiggle, communications director at the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud in Washington, D.C. “Crooks are offering fake health coverage, stripped down policies masquerading as real coverage. They’re also selling … fake Obamacare coverage.”
One of the reasons for the spike is the prevailing confusion over the new Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.
“Crooks are playing on that confusion,” Quiggle said. “Confusion is a crook’s best friend.”
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For example, Evelyne Lois Such, 86, of Denver, said she received a call from a man saying the government was handing out new Medicare cards in anticipation of the advent of ObamaCare and needed to check to be sure her statistics were correct. He rattled off her name, address and phone number, but when he asked her to confirm her bank routing number, she became suspicious and hung up.
Lois Greisman, who runs the division of marketing practices at the Federal Trade Commission, says the uptick in insurance scams is “par for the course.”
“Fraudsters are as attuned to what’s going on in the news as anybody else,” Greisman told KHN.
Before Katrina hit land, websites were up soliciting funds to help victims of Katrina. This is not a surprise; this is par for the course.”
Scams can range from amateurs in search of quick cash to well-organized crime rings that rake in millions from the unsuspecting. The public is being warned that these scams are likely to increase as the Affordable Care Act ramps up.
“The first line of defense is don’t take a call from out of the blue from anyone who’s offering to help you navigate the new health care market,” cautions Greisman. “Those kinds of cold calls just shouldn’t take place, same thing with an unsolicited email, an unsolicited text.”
The public is also being advised to never give up any personal or financial information over the phone.
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