Helping Medicare Recipients Stay Safe

If you are a Medicare recipient, there are various supplemental plans available to you that are supposed to help pay for things that basic Medicare coverage doesn’t pay for, such as prescriptions and certain medical procedures. 

Even the basic Medicare can be very confusing, but when you start factoring in all the supplemental coverage, it can be even much more confusing.  On top of that, there are a great many agents and salespeople trying to sell you more coverage.  This can be extremely confusing, and some of these individuals who are selling supplemental insurance are not necessarily honest and they only have their best interests at heart – not yours.

Chances are that you have received lots of mail and phone calls from people trying to sell you more coverage.  They might try to “sweet-talk” you into buying or they might try to pressure you into buying from them.  When they are doing this, they might try to worry you by telling you that if you don’t get the plan they are offering, you could suffer financial ruin, and other stories like that. 

Quite often, these individuals aren’t very honest.  In addition, many of them don’t understand Medicare and can’t be sure what plan or plans would be best for you.  How can you be protected from these individuals?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently proposed stricter marketing rules to protect Medicare Advantage and Part D recipients from being taken advantage of by dishonest sales people.  Some of the proposed rules include eliminating cold calls of patients and banning sales activities at public events, such as health fairs or waiting rooms.

In addition, you can help protect yourself by:
• Having a friend or relative present at any appointment you make with a sales person
• Never giving out information such as social security number, birthday or policy numbers over the phone
• Never sign anything unless you thoroughly understand it
• Don’t allow a sales person to intimidate or pressure you into signing something right away.  If they tell you this is a one time offer and they can’t come back, something is not right

For answers to your questions, contact www.medicare.gov, or www.cms.gov, which is the official site for Medicare.  In addition, Medicare would like to hear from you if you have suggestions or complaints.  You can contact them at the web sites given or call them at 1-800-633-4227.  To report fraud or abuse, call 1-800-447-8477.