People approaching Medicare eligibility are one of the most heavily targeted groups for fraud in the country. The calls are constant during enrollment season, and they are convincing because they are professionally scripted.
The good news is that the tells are consistent.
What no legitimate caller will ever ask for
- Your Medicare number, unprompted. A genuine agency asks for it only at the point of completing an enrolment you asked for, on a call you initiated or scheduled.
- Your Social Security number to “verify” or “look up” anything.
- Bank details or a card number over the phone for a Medicare product.
- Payment for a new Medicare card. There is no such thing. Cards are free and are never sold.
If a caller asks for any of those, the call is not what it says it is. Hang up. You do not owe them the end of the conversation.
The four pressure patterns
Urgency. “Your coverage lapses today.” “This offer ends at midnight.” Real enrollment windows last weeks or months, and no legitimate agent needs a decision in the next ten minutes.
Authority. Claiming to be from Medicare, from “the Medicare office”, or from a government department. Medicare does not cold-call people to sell plans.
Free things. Braces, test kits, genetic screening, medical equipment offered unsolicited by phone. This is one of the most common fraud patterns and it usually exists to obtain your Medicare number for billing.
Confirmation. “We just need to confirm your details.” A call that opens by asking you to confirm information they should already have is fishing for information they do not have.
The rule that makes it simple
Hang up and call back on a number you found yourself.
Not the number they gave you. Not the number on the caller ID, which is trivially faked. A number from a statement, a card, an official website, or a directory.
Any legitimate organisation will be entirely comfortable with this. A fraudulent one will try to talk you out of it, which is itself the answer.
What we do and do not do
We do not cold-call. If you have not asked us to contact you, and you have not consented to be contacted, a call claiming to be from us is not from us.
If you get one, hang up and telephone the number published on this website. We would rather field ten calls checking than have one person lose money.
If you think you have been targeted
Report it. Medicare fraud is investigated, and reporting genuinely helps — these campaigns work through whole neighbourhoods, so one report often protects several people.
- 1-800-MEDICARE — report suspected fraud, 24 hours a day. TTY 1-877-486-2048.
- Your SHIP counsellor — free, independent, sells nothing, and will look at a suspicious letter or call with you.
- Your state insurance department — for anything involving a licensed agent’s conduct.
You do not need our permission and you do not need to tell us first.
If you already gave something away
Act quickly rather than waiting to be sure.
If it was your Medicare number, report it to 1-800-MEDICARE and watch your Medicare statements for services you did not receive. If it was bank or card details, telephone your bank now. If it was your Social Security number, the Federal Trade Commission publishes a recovery process.
Embarrassment is the thing these operations rely on most. The scripts are written by professionals and being taken in by one says nothing about you.
Where to check this independently
Nothing on this page is advice about your situation, and none of it replaces the free sources. The Medicare Plan Finder,1-800-MEDICARE, your SHIP counsellor andHealthCare.gov are free, independent, and show plans we cannot sell.
Healthbase is a licensed insurance agency, not a government agency and not connected with Medicare or any federal or state program.