A tool launched Tuesday by the Better Business Bureau has logged 100 possible scams related to healthcare in more than 7,000 incidents of fraud reported by consumers.
The free interactive online “Scam Tracker” uses a “heat map” to show in which geographic regions suspected fraudulent activity is being reported, a description of the fraud, and how much money consumers claim to have lost.
Users can report potential fraudulent activity they have heard about, whether or not they are a victim of the scam. The current incidents date back to February. The BBB began piloting the tracker in nine areas throughout the U.S. in 2014.
While the tracker is not specific to healthcare, it may be a timely tool for the industry given the November start of open enrollment.
“Scammers will just pull key phrases from what's in the news, and send e-mails saying 'your Medicare records need to be updated' or 'There was a problem with your healthcare registration,' " explained Katherine Hutt, director of communications for the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the not-for-profit that oversees the 113 bureaus in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
This is the third open-enrollment period for the federal government's health insurance exchange website, a product of the Affordable Care Act.
During last year's open enrollment, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team of the Department of Homeland Security alerted consumers of an e-mail phishing scam in which people claiming to work for the federal government referenced the ACA in e-mails that fraudulently redirected consumers to sites that elicited private information or installed malicious code.
The BBB scam tracker does not sort the incidents by industry but warns that tactics used are consistent across industries.
Incidents related to people posing as fake representatives from Medicare/Medicaid were so frequent in the pilot phase of creating the scam tracker that the task force of CEOs, operations technicians and investigators who designed the system emphasized that problem separately. It's one of 33 specific “scam types” that people select from a drop-down menu, which the council can then easily monitor.
Among the incidents posted so far, one person wrote that they had lost $500 while shopping online for medical insurance. The individual claimed a company promised a health plan with prescription coverage and no co-pays, but ultimately they ended up with a discount plan with limited coverage.
Another received a call from someone claiming to be from Medicare, who offered free dentures and eyeglasses, among other items. Someone from what appears to be a medical practice wrote that several patients had reported calls from a pharmacy that tried to obtain personal information, as well as information about which of the practice's doctors the patients were seeing.
The Council of Better Business Bureaus, which already warns consumers about dishonest business practices, says it is sharing the information gathered with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, which processes data for law enforcement, and the Federal Trade Commission, which gathers information about scams from multiple outlets.
As the number of reports increase and are vetted by the council, Hutt says uses of the database will broaden.“If something pops up in a certain area, we might be able to warn doctors if there is a scam focused on the medical community or things that impact their practices, (for example) like fake invoices being sent,” she said.
The group also plans to issue regular alerts about “hot scams” to be aware of.
