Watch out for Medicare scams

It’s that time of year again when Medicare holds its Open Enrollment.

Selecting a health insurance plan can be challenging and complex. Be on the lookout for common red flags.

• Be wary of anyone who contacts you unsolicited. Medicare will help with which plan is right for you at: 1-800MEDICARE or Medicare.gov. These people are NOT allowed to charge for their help, so if someone asks you for payment, it’s a scam.

You will also need to contact them; they will NOT call you out-of-the-blue.

• Be wary of free gifts and “health screenings.” Keep a healthy level of skepticism any time a broker offers you free gifts or other special deals.

Never sign up with a broker who offers you an expensive sign-up gift in exchange for providing your Medicare

ID number or other personally identifiable information.

Other times, brokers offer free “health screenings” to weed out people who are less healthy.

This is called “cherry picking” and is against the Medicare rules.

• Guard your government-issued numbers. Never offer your Medicare ID number, Social Security number, health plan info, or banking information to anyone you don’t know.

• Go directly to the official website. If you want to make changes to your health care plan, go directly to Medicare.gov.

Don’t click on links in suspicious messages even if they look like they’ve come from Medicare.

Take action

If you are unsure whether a call or offer is from Medicare, or you gave personal information to someone claiming to be with Medicare, call the Texas Senior Medicare Patrol: 1-888-341-6187 to report it.

Lilly Chu, MSW, is Senior Program Coordinator for the Better Business Bureau Education Foundation.