OPINION: Watch for Scams in New Prescription-Drug Plan
Posted on: Monday, 26 September 2005, 18:01 CDT
By The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.
Sep. 24--With less than two weeks to go before marketing can begin for Medicare's new prescription-drug plan, the crooks have already begun preying on potential recipients.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued warnings after receiving reports that people claiming they are "authorized" or "funded" by Medicare to contact beneficiaries surfaced.
Do not give out your Social Security, credit card or bank account numbers to anyone calling on your telephone or knocking on your door who says he wants to help guide you through the prescription plan. Treat those calls or visits as potential scams and call Madigan's consumer fraud hotline at (800) 243-0618.
The new plan goes into effect next year, but state and federal officials have begun informational sessions. Marketing for the program is not supposed to begin until Oct. 1, and enrollment will be from Nov. 15 through May 15.
The Social Security Administration also will be mailing information to Medicare recipients.
The state also has two programs to answer questions about the new plan: The Senior Health Insurance Program at (800) 548-9034 and Department on Aging Senior HelpLine at (800) 252-8966.
Based on feedback from some of the nationwide consumer groups that have had meetings with Medicare recipients across the country to explain the new program, major confusion is expected.
The new drug plan's cost to Medicare recipients is expected to average about $32 a month, which would be on top of the Medicare cost of $88.50 next year -- a 13 percent increase in Medicare from this year.
The theory behind the prescription plan is that if Medicare pays for drugs that are used to manage health problems, more people will take the drugs and prevent them having more costly, serious problems that force them to be hospitalized or put in nursing homes.
Unfortunately, details of the program had just been released in the spring of 2004 when the crooks began using telemarketing to call on people to sell fraudulent discount cards that could supposedly be used in conjunction with the prescription plan. They were trying to convince people to give them cash for cards that could be used to get discounts for prescription drugs in the program that was 1 1/2 years away. That same scam may pop up again.
Medicare recipients who don't understand the program should seek help from people they know and trust.
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Source: The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.
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