CHICAGO, May 25 (UPI) -- The Illinois attorney general's office is warning senior citizens about a growing number of telemarketing scams promising huge discounts on prescription drugs as the new Medicare drug card benefit goes into effect next Tuesday.
"Con artists taking advantage of potential confusion created during the first stages of the Medicare card sign-up are victimizing elderly, and often low-income, Illinoisans -- some of our most vulnerable residents," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.
"The large number of cards being offered and the complexity of the program allows these scam artists to sneak in potentially undetected."
In one scam Canadian telemarketers promise discounts of 50 percent to 80 percent off discount drug purchases, then ask seniors to read the bank account information off the bottom of one of their checks. The scam artists then generate a bank draft debiting the seniors' bank accounts.
In another, telemarketers ask consumers to provide bank-account numbers and other financial and personal information claiming a $600 credit will be deposited directly into their account.
The new $600 Medicare credit is a legitimate part of the plan but only for eligible low-income seniors -- individuals with incomes of $12,569 or less or couples with incomes less than $16,862 -- who enroll for that benefit themselves.
The $600 is a credit on the card, not in a bank account.
An estimated 7.2 million low-income seniors may be eligible for the $600 credit, but the Department of Health and Human Services predicts just 4.7 million will sign up.
"It's the perfect environment for people to prey on these elders," Betty Davis, case management director of the Council on Aging told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida. "We're talking about people who have a limited capacity for details, are hard of hearing, have issues about sight and limited cognition. How are they ever going to sort through these details?"
The Medicare Rights Center, a national consumer group, Tuesday called for automatic enrollment of low-income consumers who have proven their eligibility for the new $600 transitional drug-assistance program. The organization also recommends consumers be allowed to switch drug cards whenever a provider changes the drugs or discounts it offers.
The center's report cites four problems in the drug discount card program: Discount cards don't offer as good a savings as many existing alternatives, the complexity of the program makes it nearly impossible for an average consumer to make an informed choice, the enrollment procedure for low-income benefits limits the number of people opting for the $600 transitional assistance, and discounts available to consumers using the cards will change weekly, preventing consumers limited to one card choice a year from selecting the best card for their evolving needs.
"We're working with states that have state pharmacy assistance programs to look at ways to efficiently enroll their populations," Michael McMullan of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services said on the Kaiser Family Foundation's "Ask the Experts" webcast Tuesday. "In those states, their state law allows them to be an authorized representative for their members. They can automatically enroll and we will take their automatic enrollment."
Seventy-three different prescription drug cards approved by the government went on sale May 3, and there could be more than 100 cards eventually offering discounts between 10 percent to 30 percent on as many as 60,000 FDA-approved drugs. The expanded prescription-drug benefit in the 2003 Medicare reform bill doesn't go into effect until Jan. 1, 2006, so seniors who want to save money over the next 18 months must decide on one drug card and purchase it soon.
They don't have to do it by June 1, but low-income seniors who want to take advantage of the $600 credit for 2004 should sign up for a card by the end of the year.
Not all of the cards cover the name-brand drugs they may use, and to make matters more confusing, pharmacy companies can change the list of covered drugs and their discounts weekly.
The discount card is considered a modest first step on the way to full prescription-drug benefits in 2006, but experts say people who already have good prescription coverage through an employer, retiree or private health plan may be better off sticking with their current insurance card.
"It's certainly what we're hearing from people," said Patricia Nemore of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. "I think people who have any kind of coverage at all ... people who would not qualify for the $600, who have any coverage at all seem to be kind of throwing up their hands and saying, 'I'm glad I don't have to worry about this because it is a complicated process.'"
Nemore said even when glitches that give erroneous comparison prices on Medicare's Web site are fixed, it's going to be a complicated process to make this choice.
"There's an enormous amount of confusion," she said. "I think for people who have other coverage, it's probably not worth their time to try to go through the complex (process). You can get a lot of information off the Web site, but it makes the choosing fairly difficult."
The drug-benefit cards will be in effect from June 1 until 2006.
Madigan's office advises seniors not to rush into signing up for a plan and to take these steps to avoid fraud:
-- Don't give out personal or financial information over the phone or in person. Medicare-affiliated drug discount care providers do not solicit business by telephone or door-to-door sales.
-- Don't pay large amounts of money up front. Discount drug cards cost a maximum $30 a year and have the official Medicare seal on them.
-- Make sure the card you choose covers the medicines you take and is accepted by a local pharmacy.
Under the new law Medicare beneficiaries who are currently covered through Medicaid are not eligible for the Transitional Assistance Discount Drug Card Program. Illinois provides Medicare and SeniorCare drug coverage to 500,000 low-income seniors and disabled that offer a better drug benefit than the $600 a year under the federal government's transitional assistance program.
Who should seniors trust for good information?
The Wall Street Journal reported the federal Medicare prescription drug card Web site has given out inaccurate price information since the day it was launched.
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., sent a letter to Medicare Administrator Mark McClellan last week calling on him to fix erroneous and misleading information in state summaries on the number of seniors eligible to participate in the Medicare Transitional Discount Card Transition Assistance Program.
"These new Medicare drug discount cards are turning out to be bad news for seniors," said Durbin. "First seniors were warned by the secretary of health and human services to 'hold back' and not commit themselves to a particular program because they could end up with a discount today that disappears tomorrow. Now we are finding that the estimates of how many seniors are eligible for certain benefits under these cards are wildly exaggerated."
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