Medicare Companies Use Sick Marketing Practices, Federal Audit Finds

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A federal audit of Medicare coverage by brand-name insurance companies found a pattern of wrongly denied claims and deceptive marketing practices, NYT reports. In some cases, salesmen would show up at elderly folk's doors and say the President sent them, or that they're from Medicare. In others, telemarketers call and say they're from Medicare and the person will lose their benefits if they don't enroll in the telemarketer's plan. Our country's healthcare system is on life support and we're not sure what will fix it. Perhaps an appetite for more oversight, audits and fines for misbehaving companies would do the trick.

A federal audit of Medicare coverage by brand-name insurance companies found a pattern of wrongly denied claims and deceptive marketing practices, NYT reports. In some cases, salesmen would show up at elderly folk’s doors and say the President sent them, or that they’re from Medicare. In others, telemarketers call and say they’re from Medicare and the person will lose their benefits if they don’t enroll in the telemarketer’s plan. Our country’s healthcare system is on life support and we’re not sure what will fix it. Perhaps an appetite for more oversight, audits and fines for misbehaving companies would do the trick.

Medicare Audits Show Problems in Private Plans [NYT via Consumer World Blog]

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