Join our Medicare Fraud Prevention Campaign
Each June we celebrate our fight against Medicare Fraud! We invite you to participate in our Challenge as the the Iowa Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) works to stamp out Medicare fraud, errors and abuse. We need you, your family, friends and caregivers to help prevent, detect, and report health care fraud, errors, and abuse through actions that everyone can take to prevent Medicare fraud, errors, and abuse.
Focusing attention on Medicare Fraud prevention is important because Medicare loses an estimated $60 billion each year due to fraud, errors, and abuse. Every day, issues related to these problems affect people across the country, often costing them time, money, and well-being. Click on this link to participate in our Medicare Fraud Prevention Challenge and be entered in a drawing for a prize. Help us take back Medicare!
Medicare-related errors contribute to this annual loss even though errors can be honest health care billing mistakes. However, repeated errors by a doctor or provider could be considered a red flag of potential fraud or abuse if not corrected.
When people steal from Medicare, it hurts us all and is big business for criminals. Some common examples of fraud, errors, or abuse include:
- Charging for services or supplies that were not provided
- Misrepresenting a diagnosis, a person’s identity, the service provided, or other facts to justify payment
- Prescribing or providing excessive or unnecessary tests and services
People impacted by health scams or health care fraud may also have “compromised” Medicare numbers. This means that your card number is no longer private, and just like a stolen credit card number, it can be used to fraudulently order services and supplies.
Stealing from Medicare depletes available funds for those needing services now as well as those needing Medicare in the future.