In the United States, autumn brings cooler temperatures, changing leaves, and a bombardment of health insurance scams during open enrollment. That’s the one time of the year Americans can make changes to their health insurance plans. The open enrollment period for Medicare — the government-funded health insurance for those 65 and older — runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7. Most employer-sponsored health insurance plans also have their open enrollment period in the fall, generally in that same October to December timeframe.
Here are 3 things to watch out for during this year’s open enrollment period.
Medicare scams are the #1 type of phone scam in the United States. They are common year round, but they surge during open enrollment.
There are a wide range of Medicare scams. Sometimes fraudsters steal money by convincing seniors to pay for a service that is already covered. But often, the more valuable prize is to obtain a victim’s Medicare number and other personal information. With that information, scammers can bill Medicare on an ongoing basis for bogus medical services or medical equipment.
When you sign up for a new health insurance plan, a lot of personal information is required to process the application. Scammers know that, and use health insurance as a way of extracting personal information that can later be used for identity theft.
Consumers using Hiya’s spam protection service have reported receiving a wide variety of unwanted calls related to health insurance. Sometimes the scammers will pretend to represent a large, well-known health insurance company like UnitedHealthcare. Other times they may make up a name of a company that sounds legitimate but doesn’t actually exist, like Healthcare Solutions. Users also report that the caller ID is commonly spoofed, so the name of an insurance company (real or invented) appears when the phone rings.
With rising costs, consumers are always looking for ways to save money on their health insurance plans. But before switching to a new plan, consumers should know exactly what they are buying. Recently the US Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert, Looking for health insurance? Make sure that’s what you’re getting. It warned of dishonest marketers attracting customers who thought they were getting comprehensive health insurance, when in reality they were merely getting a medical discount plan.
In August, two companies paid $145 million to settle FTC charges that they misled millions of consumers seeking to buy comprehensive health insurance. The FTC alleged that the companies deceived consumers and led them to purchase plans that didn’t provide the promised health care coverage, and bombarded them with telemarketing and robocalls.
The best way to protect against health insurance scams is to stop the calls before they ever reach your phone.
For mobile phone carriers, there’s Hiya Protect, a complete call protection solution that enables carriers to block fraud calls and label suspected nuisance calls to protect subscribers.
For individuals who do not have spam protection through their mobile phone carrier, there’s the Hiya Spam Blocker app, which can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.
For business professionals and employers with bring-your-own-device policies, Hiya recommends the Hiya AI Phone app, which features real-time scam protection, AI-voice and deepfake protection, AI-assisted call screening, and call summaries and transcripts.