TULSA, Okla. — What in the world, you may ask, do ants and Medicare have in common?
Well, Patsy Davis ran into issues with both ants and Medicare, at the same time.
“I thought it couldn’t get any worse than this, but it did,” she says. What happened? “It was such a shock,” Patsy said.
As she dealt with the ants, she got a bill in the mail for more than $650, a bill from Medicare.
“We had no warning, no nothing.”
She had never been billed before, since her premiums are automatically deducted from her monthly social security check, which is also automatically deposited.
“I mean, I had ants the day before and that was bad enough.”
Davis told us she’s old school when it comes to keeping records. She sifted through her drawer of important stuff, searching for any documents that might help her figure out what was going on with her Medicare coverage.
She said she’s heard about Medicare fraud and all those schemes that cost victims a lot of money. Davis said she spent a lot of time on the phone but didn’t get many answers.
“I thought it might be a scam,” she told us.
2 News discovered there were a lot of moving pieces to her puzzle. So, to help her get the answers she needed, we put her in touch with the person at Medicare who could help her directly. It turned out, she’d need information from social security and her new bank too, a bank she just started using a few weeks before she got that bill from Medicare.
Davis told us, “I found out they had me down as the wrong Patsy Davis, how many Patsy Davis do you think there are in the whole U.S.? There’s no telling.”
Here's what happened: when Patsy changed banks, some red flags popped up so Social Security suspended her monthly payments, to prevent any potential fraud. And since her Medicare premiums had always been taken out of her social security deposit each month, Medicare wasn’t getting paid—- leading to a legitimate bill for three months’ worth of premiums.
Thank goodness, she said, her Medicare issue is resolved. But then, there are those ants, she joked.
What’s easier to deal with? “I don’t know, maybe the ants would be a little better, I don’t know.”
Here’s how you can protect yourself from Medicare scams.
- Be vigilant and avoid giving out personal information over the phone or email.
- Verify emails and call Medicare or Social Security directly if in doubt.
- Research before buying any Medicare plan advertised on TV.
- Hang up the phone immediately when you receive a call from someone claiming to be a Medicare representative and asking you for your personal information.
- Only give your Medicare information to trusted individuals like doctors, insurers, and pharmacists who work directly with Medicare.
- Destroy your old Medicare card, if you haven’t already.
- Run it through a shredder, or cut it up with scissors, making sure the part with your Social Security number is completely cut up.
Contact the Problem Solvers:
- 918-748-1502
- problemsolvers@kjrh.com
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Twitter