A woman received a phone call from someone who asked if she had received her new Medicare card. Medicare is not sending out new cards. The SMP said that scam calls include those claiming you are getting a new, plastic Medicare card, that Medicare is switching to a card with a chip in it, and that you need a black and white card. Watch and read a story from WTSP.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General published its report on the performance of the SMP program. SMPs provided information at more than 22,000 events and saw a 10% increase in one-on-one interactions. They also reported 26 emerging fraud schemes. Read a story from the Daily Times.

Dr. Thomas Andrew Webster was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay almost $840,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to conspiring to accept kickbacks in connection with a fraudulent telemarketing and medical supply scheme. A company would use telemarketers to obtain patients’ personal and health information and create fake medical records and fraudulent durable medical equipment (DME) orders, which Webster would then sign. Click here to read more.

Cathleen Caraballo was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison and ordered to pay almost $576,000 in restitution. She previously pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud, health care fraud, and false statement charges. Court documents show that Caraballo fraudulently obtained a state-issued driver’s license using a victim’s name and information but with her picture. She received Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments and Medicare benefits in the victim’s name. The scheme began to come to light when the victim attempted to apply for government benefits under her own name. Click here to read more.

In an update to a December 8, 2023, story, Baqar Hussain Razv Syed, the owner of Luna Labs, was sentenced to two years in prison and was ordered to pay $14.4 million in restitution. He was accused of filing millions of dollars’ worth of false Medicare claims for allegedly providing COVID-19 test kits to beneficiaries across the country who said they had never requested or ordered such tests. Syed was also accused of filing claims on behalf of hundreds of “deceased beneficiaries,” court records show. Click here to read more.