{"id":97,"date":"2025-09-13T06:34:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/?p=97"},"modified":"2025-09-13T07:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T11:44:10","slug":"medicare-fraud-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/2025\/09\/13\/medicare-fraud-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare Fraud \u2013 What You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6 data-start=\"433\" data-end=\"629\">Medicare fraud costs billions each year and puts beneficiaries at risk. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/meetings-events\/meetings\/\"><strong>Join us<\/strong><\/a> to learn how to recognize the warning signs, protect yourself, and share valuable information with fellow members.<\/h6>\n<h5>Medical Identity Theft<\/h5>\n<p>Medical identity theft occurs when a beneficiary\u2019s Medicare number is misused, either by a provider, a supplier, or someone posing as the real beneficiary, to receive medical care. Such Medicare numbers are considered \u201ccompromised.\u201d A beneficiary whose number is compromised may be affected forever by false claims against his or her Medicare number.<\/p>\n<h5>Health Impact<\/h5>\n<p>Receiving health care from a fraudulent provider can mean the quality of the care is poor, the intervention is not medically necessary, or worse: The intervention is actually harmful. A beneficiary may later receive improper medical treatment from legitimate providers as a result of inaccurate medical records that contain:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>False diagnoses<\/li>\n<li>Records showing treatments that never occurred<\/li>\n<li>Misinformation about allergies<\/li>\n<li>Incorrect lab results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, because of inaccurate or fraudulent claims to Medicare, beneficiaries may be denied needed Medicare benefits. For example, some services have limits. If Medicare thinks such services were already provided, they will deny payment.<\/p>\n<h5>Personal Financial Losses<\/h5>\n<p>Medicare fraud, errors, and abuse can all result in higher out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries, such as copayments for health care services that were never provided, were excessive, or were medically unnecessary. Beneficiaries may also find themselves stuck with bills for services from providers who should have billed Medicare but instead billed the beneficiary for the entire cost of that service.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"631\" data-end=\"749\">This session is open to all VFN members and leaders\u2014let\u2019s work together to stay informed and safeguard our benefits!<\/p>\n<h5 data-start=\"751\" data-end=\"798\">\ud83d\udc49 Mark your calendar and be sure to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/meetings-events\/meetings\/\">join us<\/a>!<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn how to recognize, report, and prevent Medicare fraud, errors, and abuse.\u00a0 Shawn Smith, State Director of the Virginia Medicare Patrol (SMP) will provide valuable tips and resources to help safeguard your benefits.\u00a0\u00a0Have you ever wondered how to spot mistakes or fraud? Remember, there is free help available, and Mr. Smith will provide contact lists that will make your life much easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"kp-content-permissions":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meetings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2025\/09\/medicare-fraud.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"kp-content-permissions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.narfe.org\/va\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kp-content-permissions?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}