Home Health & Hospice Week

If your patients ask your staff questions about cheek swabs for tests that their referring physician never ordered, you may want to investigate. Swindlers are tricking beneficiaries across the nation in the latest Medicare-related identity theft scam.

Logistics: The fraud scheme involves the illegal collection of cheek swabs for genetic testing by thieves hoping to use Medicare beneficiaries’ data to steal their identities and/or submit fraudulent bills to Medicare for the service, according to an HHS Office of Inspector General alert. “Fraudsters are targeting beneficiaries through telemarketing calls, booths at public events, health fairs, and door-to-door visits,” the release cautions.

Once a Medicare beneficiary agrees to the genetic testing, a kit is forwarded to the patient — whether or not it was ordered by a provider or medically necessary, the OIG release says.

The federal watchdog offers these tips you may want to relay to your patients: don’t accept a genetic testing kit from someone you don’t know; send back kits and keep a record for the authorities; be wary of people you don’t know who want your personal information, specifically your Medicare data for testing; check with your physician before accepting any genetic testing requests; protect your Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) from scammers and refuse unwarranted requests.

If one of your patients has been solicited by the scammers, they can contact the OIG about genetic testing fraud at https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/report-fraud.