Senior Medicare Patrol
The Iowa Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) educates Iowans on how to detect and report healthcare fraud in Medicare in order to protect this vital healthcare program for the future.
Help Control Your Healthcare Costs
Billions of Medicare dollars are lost each year through errors, fraud, waste and abuse. This can mean cuts in service and higher healthcare costs for everyone. The information below will help you identify and reduce errors, fraud, waste and abuse. You can help keep your own healthcare costs down!
What You can do to Make a Difference
Keep a record
A free health journal is available from Aging Resources of Central
Iowa. Call (515) 255-6142, ext x312.
Protect Your Personal Information
- Treat your Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security numbers like a credit card number.
- Remember, Medicare will not call you or visit you to sell you anything!
- Save Medicare Summary Notices (MSN) and Part D explanations of Benefits (E0B), but shred them when they are no longer useful.
Detect Errors, Fraud and Abuse
- Has Medicare paid twice for the same service?
- Are the dates of services different than your records?
- Has Medicare been billed for a service you did not get?
Ask Questions
Call your doctor, hospital or Medicare if you do not understand the charges on your bills or statements. If you cannot resolve the situation to your satisfaction call Nancy G. Anderson, SMP Coordinator at (515) 255-6142, ext. 312 or the SMP statewide hotline at (800) 423-2449.
Be Informed
We deliver presentations for interested parties to educate them on how to detect and where to report signs of fraud, waste and abuse.
Downloadable Documents [PDF]
Senior Medicare Patrol Brochure
2011 March SMP Newsletter
2011 April SMP Newsletter
2011 June SMP Newsletter
2011 July SMP Newsletter
2011 August SMP Newsletter
2011 September SMP Newsletter
2011 October SMP Newsletter
2011 November SMP Newsletter
2011 December SMP Newsletter
2012 January SMP Newsletter
2012 February SMP Newsletter
