Mailers are designed to look official. The buses have scam pitches. People are encouraged to sign up for Medicare plans that do not always include their current doctors in TV commercials.
Health experts are warning older adults about an increase in misleading marketing tactics that may lead them to sign up for Medicare Advantage plans that do not cover their regular doctors or prescriptions.
The Commonwealth Fund is a health care think tank. We need a way to protect and inform consumers.
The business is booming in the Medicare Advantage plan marketplace, which offers privately run versions of the government's Medicare program for people who are 65 and older. Insurers look to marketing agencies and brokers to help them stick out among the many plans offered through the program.
The staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are outdoors. According to an agency memo sent to insurers last month, they are covertly shopping for plans by calling the numbers associated with some online, TV and newspaper ads. The operation has turned up insurance agents who were using incorrect information. The benefits that enrollees would get and the money they would save in the new plans are overstated in some instances.
In some cases, small civil fines can be issued by the government agency known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
According to the letter, the agency is concerned about the marketing practices of all entities.
More than 40,000 complaints were received last year about misleading Medicare Advantage ads. There is no data for this year.
Several states reported an increase in complaints about deceptive marketing schemes in the year 2021.
Older adults in Ohio received mailers with promises of bigger Social Security checks if they enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan. The bus that was designed to look like an official Medicare bus had an advertising link to an insurance broker.
Some customers have been deceived by Nationwide TV ads.
One ad, featuring a former football player, failed to tell viewers that plans vary by ZIP code or that some providers will not be in network, while promising to add money back to their Social Security check.
9 of 10 states that tracked Medicare Advantage complaints saw an increase in reports from 2020 to 2021, according to a survey by the committee.
The committee chairman, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said that it was unacceptable for this magnitude of fraudsters and scam artists to be running amok in Medicare.
The agency said in the memo that it had reviewed thousands of complaints. It requires insurance agents and brokers to record calls with their clients so they can be reviewed if a complaint is made. Insurance companies are responsible for the material published on their behalf by agents, brokers or marketing companies they contract with, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Christine Williams of the State Health Insurance Assistance Program said that they are getting more calls from people who are worried about the plans they signed up for. In some cases, callers have said that they were not allowed to see their doctors.
She said that people who are signing up for Medicare Advantage should ask their broker or agent how doctors, prescriptions and services are covered by the plans they are selling. Counselors are also offered in every state.
Williams asked specific questions.
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