Protecting yourself
How to spot a Medicare scam call
Medicare will not call you to sell a plan, offer a free brace, or ask for your number to verify your account. Here is what legitimate outreach looks like.
People turning 65 become, almost overnight, one of the most heavily targeted groups for fraud in the country. The volume is intense and the scripts are good. The useful thing is that legitimate Medicare outreach follows rules, and the scams almost always break at least one of them.
Things that never happen
- Medicare does not cold-call beneficiaries to sell or switch plans.
- Medicare does not send representatives to your door uninvited.
- No legitimate caller needs your Medicare number to 'verify your account' or to send you a new card.
- Nobody who is legitimate will tell you a benefit expires at the end of the call.
- Free braces, free genetic testing kits and free medical equipment offered by phone are, essentially without exception, billing fraud.
What legitimate contact looks like
A licensed agent may contact you if you asked them to — you filled out a form, requested a quote, or gave written permission to be contacted. Under Medicare marketing rules, that permission has to be specific, and a scope-of-appointment form has to be completed before an agent discusses specific plan types with you.
A legitimate agent will give you their name, their license number if you ask, and the name of the agency they work for. They will put plan costs in writing. They will be comfortable with you taking a week to think about it, because they know the enrollment window is eight weeks long.
Urgency is the tell. Real options do not expire this afternoon.
What to do if you gave out information
Call 1-800-MEDICARE and report it. Review your Medicare Summary Notice or your online claims history for services you did not receive — fraudulent billing often shows up there before anything else does. Your state's Senior Medicare Patrol offers free help with exactly this, and your State Health Insurance Assistance Program can review your coverage at no cost and with no sales involvement.
Being targeted is not a reflection of judgment. These operations call millions of numbers, and they are practiced. The only durable defense is knowing in advance which requests are impossible.
This article is general education and is not advice about your individual situation. Plan availability, costs and formularies change annually and vary by county. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or your local State Health Insurance Assistance Program to get information on all of your options.