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FRIDAY, Feb. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) — An investigation into how telemarketers may be obtaining seniors’ personal Medicare information will be launched by the U.S. Health and Human Services inspector general office.<\/p>\n
The audit will be announced next week, an official told the Associated Press<\/i>, and comes in response to a surge of telemarketing scams targeting Medicare recipients that range from back braces to DNA swabs. The new wider-ranging probe comes after an initial probe discovered that an electronic system designed for pharmacies to verify Medicare coverage was being used for searches unrelated to filling prescriptions.<\/p>\n
Seniors are told not to give their Medicare information to people they do not know, but the initial probe revealed that personal details can get to telemarketers when a Medicare beneficiary deals with a pharmacy or doctor’s office, the AP<\/i> reported. Those details can then be compared with databases of individual phone numbers, allowing telemarketers to target seniors, according to the results released Friday.<\/p>\n
That initial audit zeroed in on 30 pharmacies and other service providers that often pinged a Medicare system created for drugstores, the AP<\/i> reported.<\/p>\n
AP News<\/i> Article<\/a><\/p>\n