Senior Medicare Patrol programs help Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries prevent, detect and report health care fraud, abuse, and waste. In doing so, they not only protect older persons, they also help preserve the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Because this work often requires face-to-face contact to be most effective, SMPs nationwide recruit and teach nearly 5,000 volunteers every year to help in this effort. Most SMP volunteers are both retired and Medicare beneficiaries and thus well-positioned to assist their peers.
Senior Medicare Patrol programs educate not only beneficiaries, but their families and caregivers as well, to prevent, detect, and report healthcare fraud, abuse, and waste. In doing so, SMP not only protects older persons, but also helps to preserve the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The primary goal is to teach Medicare beneficiaries how to protect their personal identity, identify and report errors on their health care bills, and identify deceptive health care practices, such as illegal marketing, providing unnecessary or inappropriate services and charging for services that were never provided. In some cases, SMPs do more than educate: When Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries are unable to act on their own behalf to address these problems, the SMPs work with family, caregivers and others to address the problems, and if necessary, make referrals to outside organizations who are able to intervene.
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Vermont SMP are programs sponsored by AdviseWell, Inc., and supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,177,422.00 with 100 percent funding by ACL/HHS.
