Author Archives: virginiasmp

Partners and professionals, celebrate Medicare Fraud Prevention Week by sharing SMP information on social media, referring clients and consumers to the SMP, and inviting the SMP to speak during a shared event. Identify ways to collaborate on mission-related topics and information. 

Families, take part in Medicare Fraud Prevention week by talking to your loved ones about protecting their Medicare number just as they would a credit card number. #MFPW #MFPWfamily Families, encourage your loved one to check their Medicare statements for fraud, errors, or abuse and never give out their Medicare number over the phone forContinue reading “Medicare Fraud Prevention Week – Day 4”

Caregivers, help by educating yourself and your client or loved one on how to prevent and detect health care fraud, errors, and abuse. Be on the lookout for items such as durable medical equipment (DME) like boxes of knee braces lying around the house that may have been shipped to the beneficiary without their orContinue reading “Medicare Fraud Prevention Week – Day 3”

The most effective way to stop fraud from occurring is to prevent it in the first place. Educating yourself and your loved ones on how to prevent Medicare fraud, errors, and abuse is the best place to start.  Remember the three steps from the SMP: Prevent, Detect, Report! Prevent: Open and read your MSNs. Detect:Continue reading “Medicare Fraud Prevention Week – Day 2”

Medicare beneficiaries, Medicare Fraud Prevention Week starts today 6/5! Kick-off the week by learning how to read your Medicare statements!  Read your Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) or Explanation of Benefits (EOB) in the paper form that is mailed to you or go online to Medicare.gov and review claims digitally. Use this video from the SMPContinue reading “Medicare Fraud Prevention Week – Day 1”

I’ve been writing and talking about internet scams for most of the past three decades, and what I know is this: It’s a great time to be a criminal. Thanks to the web, email and social media, it’s never been easier to find enormous pools of potential victims. And thanks to FinTech — financial technologyContinue reading “6 Tales of Real-Life Scams”

Scammers are always creating new and improved lookalike websites to trick you out of your personal information and money. These websites may have a very similar URL or look nearly identical to the real website you are searching for, which means they can be hard to identify. Recent examples of this kind of scam includeContinue reading “How to identify a fake website”

People spend billions of dollars a year on products and treatments in the hope of improving their health and fitness. But a lot of that money goes to companies that make fake claims about those products and treatments, cheating people out of their money, their time — even their health. If you’re thinking about buyingContinue reading “Common Health Scams”