Senior Medicare Patrol
Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) helps Medicare beneficiaries, their families and caregivers who have questions about billing issues or believe they may be a victim of healthcare fraud or scams. SMP empowers and assist Medicare beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to prevent, detect, and report health care fraud, errors, and abuse through outreach, counseling, and education. For more information, call us at 502.574.6960.
What is healthcare fraud?
Medicare fraud happens when Medicare is billed for services or supplies you never got or didn't need. Errors and abuse occur when questionable practices result in unnecessary costs to Medicare.
Did you know?
- $68 billion tax dollars are lost annually to Medicare fraud, errors, and abuse each year?
- Billing errors are common and can easily be corrected.
- You can help! Medicare beneficiaries are the first line of defense against healthcare fraud. Learning how to protect personal information, detect fraud, errors and abuse, and reporting suspicious activities can help save tax dollars from criminals.
How does the SMP program help stop healthcare fraud?
SMP staff and volunteers visit seniors wherever they gather, at senior centers, housing complexes, churches, and health fairs and talk about what they can do to prevent, detect and report Medicare fraud. You can help us to do that by learning about Medicare and either visiting groups of seniors to train them on what Medicare fraud is or by attending community events like health fairs to meet people and distribute information.
- Protect, Detect, Report: We teach beneficiaries how to protect personal information, detect fraud, errors and abuse, and report suspicious activity.
- Contact us to learn about presentation topics or to schedule a presentation for your group.
- Medicare Bingo: We have a variety of educational Bingo games that share important Medicare information to seniors in a fun way! Call us to learn more!
Do your homework on COVID-19 test sites and at-home test kits
- Be careful! Scammers are setting up fraudulent COVID-19 test sites to get your personal or medical information. If you go to a pop-up site or other testing facility, research the facility or testing site before you go. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has information at www.fda.gov.
- Make sure to purchase FDA-approved COVID-19 test kits from legitimate providers. Ignore offers or advertisements for COVID-19 testing or treatments on social media sites.
- If you are concerned you may have visited a fake testing site, contact HHS Office of Inspector General by calling 800-HHS-TIPS (800-447-8477).
- Click here to learn more information about unauthorized at-home COVID-19 tests.
Get Involved!
We are always looking for more volunteers! For more information about how to get involved call us at 502.574.6960.
Or, submit a volunteer application.
You can also like us on Facebook!
