New Medicare cards coming, beware of a new way to scam.
In 2015, Congress signed a bill called Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) which required that medicare cards would no longer have a members social security number as an ID number. This process was to be completed by 2019. Starting this May roughly 59 million senior citizens will start to receive their new medicare card. The new medicare card does not require activation and will have a new 11-digit alpha numeric number. Members will just have to shred their old card and update their information at their Doctor offices. This seems like a pretty easy process but scammers have found a way to scam the elderly.
Scammers have started calling Medicare members and informing them that there is a fee to activate their new medicare card or that they need to give out their banking information to receive a refund. Most seniors do not even know about this new medicare care and most believe that this new card comes with new fees, so they are falling for these scams.
ARRP, a popular secondary coverage for Medicare members is telling all seniors to be careful when someone calls about their new medicare card and to hang up the phone and call 1-800-MEDICARE to report this fraudulent activity.
Medicare has also responded and wants enrollees to know that they don't have to do anything to activate their new medicare cards and no fees are required. Medicare will never call its members to verify information over the phone.
If you have Medicare or you know someone with Medicare make sure that scammer do not take advantage of this situation and get personal information.
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