{"id":274734,"date":"2026-03-11T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/english-durable-medical-equipment-dme-fraud-the-medicare-fraud-of-the-month-for-march\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:50:15","slug":"fraude-al-equipo-medico-duradero-dme-el-fraude-al-medicare-del-mes-de-marzo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/fraude-al-equipo-medico-duradero-dme-el-fraude-al-medicare-del-mes-de-marzo\/","title":{"rendered":"Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Fraud: &#8220;The Medicare Fraud of the Month for March&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><![CDATA[\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\nspan.prnews_span\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\na.prnews_a\n{\ncolor:blue;\n}\nli.prnews_li\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\np.prnews_p\n{\nfont-size:0.62em;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\nmargin:0in;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"legendSpanClass\">ALBANY, N.Y.<\/span>, <span class=\"legendSpanClass\">March 11, 2026<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212; The New York\u00a0StateWide Senior Action Council (StateWide), a 54-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to serving the needs and well-being of our State&#8217;s more than 3.6 million senior citizens, today announced its <b>Medicare Fraud of the Month<\/b> <b>for<\/b>\u00a0<b>March: Durable Medical Equipment Fraud.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The StateWide Fraud of the Month is a component of the <b>Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP)<\/b>, the definitive resource for New York State&#8217;s older adults and caregivers to detect, prevent, and report healthcare fraud, errors, and abuse. StateWide is New York&#8217;s grantee\/administrator for this Federal Program.<\/p>\n<p>Maria Alvarez, Executive Director of StateWide, explains, &#8220;Scammers target Medicare beneficiaries with &#8220;free&#8221; brace offers, then use their Medicare number to bill for unnecessary equipment and supplies &#8211; potentially altering medical records and impacting future care.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b><u>How the Scam Works:<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>Seniors receive an unsolicited call claiming to be from Medicare or a trusted primary doctor.<\/li>\n<li>The caller may already have some personal information and ask for verification of details.<\/li>\n<li>They may review medications, ask about chronic conditions, and ask about pain.<\/li>\n<li>Then they offer free braces and ask for a Medicare number.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes equipment or supplies are mailed to patients without any phone call at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b><u>How to Avoid the Scam:<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>Never give Medicare numbers to unsolicited callers.<\/li>\n<li>Only accept equipment or supplies ordered by YOUR DOCTOR after a real visit.<\/li>\n<li>Report equipment not requested to the\u00a0NYS Senior Medicare Patrol.<\/li>\n<li>Review Medicare Summary Notices (MSN) for charges not recognized.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Medicare WILL NOT call to offer FREE BRACES or MEDICAL SUPPLIES. If someone does it, IT&#8217;S A SCAM. Seniors who suspect their Medicare number has been compromised, or medical equipment has been ordered without permission should\u00a0<b>contact the New York State Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) at 800-333-4374, or visit <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/edge.prnewswire.com\/c\/link\/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=4637903-1&amp;h=3317464393&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nysenior.org%2F&amp;a=www.nysenior.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><b>www.nysenior.org<\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b> We have trained counselors to help Medicare beneficiaries in the fight against fraud,&#8221; Alvarez concluded.<\/p>\n<p>StateWide also provides information and educational presentations, assistance regarding any Medicare questions, plan comparisons, appeals, billing issues and patients&#8217; rights to all seniors throughout New York State.<\/p>\n<p>It is estimated that Medicare fraud costs taxpayers over $60 billion dollars nationally per year. To help combat this illicit industry StateWide announced its <b>Fraud of the Month<\/b> program in 2022 to highlight these scams being perpetrated on the State&#8217;s seniors.<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE New York StateWide Senior Action Council, Inc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"legendSpanClass\">ALBANY, N.Y.<\/span>, <span class=\"legendSpanClass\">March 11, 2026<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212; The New York\u00a0StateWide Senior Action Council (StateWide), a 54-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to serving the needs and well-being of our State&#8217;s more than 3.6 million senior citizens, today announced its <b>Medicare Fraud of the Month<\/b> <b>for<\/b>\u00a0<b>March: Durable Medical Equipment Fraud.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The StateWide Fraud of the Month is a component of the <b>Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP)<\/b>, the definitive resource&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-salud"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274734"}],"version-history":[{"count":"1","href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274735,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274734\/revisions\/274735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}