Scammers Bill Fake Medical Equipment to Your Medicare Account

Medicare scams don't wait for open enrollment. They run year-round, but tax season gives scammers their best cover story. "We need to verify your Medicare information for your tax return" sounds plausible in February. Try that line in August and people hang up.

The numbers tell the story. Medical and prescription scams generated 21,712 FTC complaints from 7,808 unique phone numbers last year. That puts medical scams in sixth place overall, accounting for 3.8% of all complaints in our database. The real impact is much larger.

Scam reporting skews younger. Filing an FTC complaint means navigating a government website and filling out forms. Seniors targeted by these calls face multiple barriers to reporting. Some don't recognize the scam. Others feel embarrassed about being fooled. Many simply don't know the FTC accepts complaints about unwanted calls.

Elder fraud research consistently shows that reported incidents represent a tiny fraction of actual crimes. When over 21,000 medical scam complaints show up in federal data, the actual number of calls could easily be ten or twenty times higher.

The complaint patterns back this up. Each medical scam number averages just 2.8 complaints. Government impersonation numbers average 3.2 complaints per number. That gap suggests medical scam victims report less often, not that these calls happen less frequently.

How the Tax Season Angle Works

Scammers blend Medicare and taxes in predictable ways. The most common script uses a recorded message claiming your Medicare benefits need "verification" before you file your return. The caller asks for your Medicare number, birth date, and Social Security number. Those three pieces of information let scammers bill fraudulent medical services to your account or steal your tax refund.

A second variation offers "free" back braces, knee supports, or DNA testing kits. The pitch includes asking for your Medicare number to "check eligibility." Some calls mention tax-deductible medical expenses to justify the timing. The scammer bills Medicare for equipment you don't need and often don't receive.

The third approach claims Medicare is issuing new cards with updated security features. The caller says they need to verify your information to send your replacement card. Medicare did replace cards with Social Security numbers in 2019, but that process ended years ago. Any call about new Medicare cards in 2026 is definitely a scam.

Florida generates unusually high complaint volume for medical scams relative to its population size. That matches Florida's large retiree population and high Medicare enrollment rate. California and Texas still lead in raw complaint numbers due to their size, but the per-capita pattern points to demographic targeting.

The infrastructure overlaps between scam categories. Phone numbers appearing in medical scam complaints often show up in government impersonation complaints too. The same operation runs IRS threat calls on Monday and Medicare pitches on Wednesday. They're targeting the same age group with different scripts.

Government impersonation generated 65,002 complaints last year. Add medical scams at 21,712 complaints, and you get over 86,000 reports from categories that heavily target people over 60. Include tech support scams (2,230 complaints) and lottery scams (3,663 complaints), and senior-targeted categories exceed 92,000 complaints total.

Medicare communicates by mail, not phone calls. Any inbound call claiming to be from Medicare should trigger an immediate hang-up. Call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) directly if you have questions about your benefits. Never give your Medicare number, Social Security number, or bank details to someone who calls you. You can check any suspicious number in our search tool to see its complaint history and scam category.