Less Paper, More Fraud

Prior to being on Medicare, I had a High Deductible insurance policy. I stayed on top of my claims, probably because I was using my hard earned dollars to pay for services. That was over seven years ago, now with Medicare I have become very lax about reviewing claims. What the heck, once I pay my deductible, Medicare and Plan G takes care of the rest; What, Me Worry?

My laxness is exacerbated by the fact that I live in a paperless world, so actually logging into a web site would be a terrible inconvenience (note sarcasm). Still, every now and again I have reason to brave the two factor authentication in order to look something up.

That was the case a few days ago. I was trying to remember when it was time to re-order CPAP supplies. I logged into My Medicare, clicked on a claim date that I thought was about right for my last CPAP order, and got a surprise. It was a $2430 claim for a urinary catheter. I dug a little deeper, and found a total of 5 monthly claims for the device. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered using one of those things…. If you know what I mean😭.

I immediately called Medicare and reported the incident. I have no idea if this is simply a billing error or fraud. I’m certain I would have caught this had I received hard forms, still, paper is wasteful. I am not advocating that we abandon paperless delivery, but going forward, I plan on logging in monthly for the sake of due diligence.