WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
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professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
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of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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The information contained in this podcast is intended for informational
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purposes only and is not a substitute for individual professional
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legal advice. The podcast information was carefully compiled from vetted
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sources and references. However, Rose Resources outreach to safeguard the
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elderly cannot guarantee that you will not fall victim to
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a scam. Let's talk about scams. It's the must listen
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show for anyone who wants to protect themselves and their
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loved ones from scams. Every Tuesday am Pacific time on
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K four HD Radio, Joyce Petrowski, founder of Rose, and
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her guests will provide valuable insights and practical tips on
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how to recognize and protect yourself from scams. And now
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here is your host, Joyce Petrowski. Hi, I'm David saying active, mentally,
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thing chess. Those are all the very important things.
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I'm seventy two, but I'm going to cheap on learning.
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I'm going to keep on moving. I'm gonna keep on
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living my life. Healthcare for David's next move. Learn more
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at Archwell health dot com. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Joyce Petrowski,
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founder and board president of Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard
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the Elderly. You can find more information on our website
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at Roseadvocacy dot org. And you can find all of
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our social media links on there as well. And don't forget,
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you're gonna want to hit subscribe to this radio show
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so you get notified of all of the upcoming episodes.
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I want to thank our twelve Health. They're our sponsor
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for the month of June and July, and you saw
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their short video on there. And I've had the privilege
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of touring quite a few R twelve offices here in
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and around the Phoenix area, and I have to tell you,
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I'm very impressed with how they've laid out their offices,
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how they've taken into consideration all kinds of maybe anxiety
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inducing things that older adults might have going into a
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doctor's office. They can remote in family members that want
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to be a part of the person's healthcare plan, and
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they're just phenomenal. There's ten of them in Maricopa County,
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all around East and West Valley and some central locations.
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I would highly suggest if you're on Medicare in your look,
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looking for a primary care physician or looking to change,
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go in and take a tour of one of their
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offices and sit down and talk to them about what
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all they have to offer for you. So today we're
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going to talk about a couple public service announcements from
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the FBI. The first one is on It's titled Emerging
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Hospice Fraud targeting Medicare recipients. I'm going to share my
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screen here so I can pull up the so I
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can pull up the actual here it is. It came
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out at the beginning of this month, on June third. Now,
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hospice fraud has been in the news a lot lately
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with some hospice locations offices that are fraudulently billing. They
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have a location an address, but it's not really a
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hospice place. So let's go down through what this is.
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What the FBI is warning us about there's an emerging
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hospice fraud scheme that targets vulnerable Medicare recipients who are
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not need of hospice services. So scammers are enrolling Medicare
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patients and hospice care for services they don't need or
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services that are not even provided. Enrollment can also incur
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without the patient's knowledge if it's a scammer. Most of
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the times that's what's going on, So it allows the
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scammers to build Medicare for a patient that's not present
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in the hospice facility. Some scammers use door to door
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solicitation tactics. We talk a little bit about door to
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door salespeople in our fraud awareness program, and they might
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also offer some free home services such as house clean
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or meal delivery, which are conditional upon using a specific
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hospice So you just want to be really careful somebody
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just showing up out of the blue, door to door
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and trying to get you to sign up for some
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hospice services that you might not need or want, and
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offering some free services as an enticement to get you
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to sign up for it. So here's some of the
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recent schemes that the FBI has seen so enrolling Medicare
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recipients in hospice care despite the patients having no terminal
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illness or no chronic condition, in Rolling patients in hospice
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care without their knowledge. Hospice providers billing Medicare without the
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beneficiary's knowledge, so without the patient's knowledge, for services that
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were not provided. There's also recruiters out there paying bonuses
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for enrolling a specific number of patients in hospice falsifying
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their scammers are also falsifying diagnosis paperwork for hospice care
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and pressuring patients to sign up for hospice care when
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they don't need it. This is that high pressure tactics.
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What they said above about enticing you with some in
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home cleaning or meal delivery or some other service that
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you might maybe you're looking for someone to do some
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cleaning around the house, or maybe you're looking for a
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meal delivery service, but just because someone shows up and
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they're offering hospice services. First of all, the door to
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door you know, I know a lot of older adults
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and this is the way I grew up as well.
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We were taught to answer the door and not shut
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the door on someone. You're very polite, but just you
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know what, peek out the window and if you see
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somebody that you don't recognize, you know, just don't answer
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the door. Or if you're not expecting anybody, you don't
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have to answer the door. You know, either just let
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them ring the bell and just to ignore it, or
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knock on the door and ignore it. But if you
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do happen to open the door and you think about
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it after you open the door, don't be afraid to
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just say no, thank you, goodbye and close the door.
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That way, you can be polite. You said no, thank you,
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say goodbye, and close the door and lock the door.
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So here's some tips the FBI has in this public
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service announcement. Never give out Medicare or other insurance information
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to anyone who's not your doctor. Never accept incentives like
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gift cards or money in return for hospice services, and
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be wary of too good to be true offers. So
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use Medicare's Hospice Compare site to look up provider ratings
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and avoid providers with low star ratings. And always review
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your explaination of benefits that you get in your Medicare
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summary notices for unknown providers and services. So we talk
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about this in our in our presentation that it is
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always good to review your explanation of benefits. We've talked
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to some people that have found services that were build
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on their Medicare account that they never received, so and
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it's good to report it. You can report it at
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the ic three dot gov, which is the FBI's Internet
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Crime Complaint Center, but the better place, in my opinion,
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to report it is to report it through Medicare. You
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can always call Medicare at one eight hundred Medicare the
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phone numbers right there on the screen one eight hundred
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sixty three, three four, two two seven. Always report it
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directly to Medicare because you want to get those charges
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off of your Medicare account. You don't want those charges
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affecting any sort of benefits that you might be entitled
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to or any sort of maybe new policies that come
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out that you might be entitled to if it weren't
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for those fraudulent charges. So always look at those when
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you get them, make sure they're accurate. And we actually
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we have another tip is that we really highly suggest
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to people when whether they're just starting out on Medicare
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or maybe they're already on Medicare, but they don't have
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a Medicare agent. Is to find a trustworthy, reputable Medicare
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agent and work through them. They are not going to
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charge you for their services. They are required every year
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to take classes and trainings to learn about all the
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changes that are occurring that year and any new programs
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and policies that are coming out. So then they're going
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to be the best person that is going to be
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able to help you navigate the Medicare system and determine
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which policies work best for your situation. You might have
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a friend, a family member, you might hear somebody talk
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about it. You might hear something advertised on the TV
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or the radio or whatever, you know, talking about this
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new Medicare policy or a certain policy that's had some
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changes to it with Medicare, and you know you're being
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told that this is going to work for you, or
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someone's telling you I changed and it's really saved me
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a lot of money. You know you should change too.
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Just always work through your Medicare agent. Because your Medicare
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agent knows your history, knows your medical conditions, your diagnoses,
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knows the prescriptions that you're on. And just because one
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plan is good for one person, doesn't necessarily mean it's
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good for another person because everybody's medical diagnoses, prescriptions, personal
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situation is different. So get that there are a ton
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of Medicare agents around. You can go on to medicares
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or that was Medicare's hospice compare site, but if they
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have that on there, I would believe and I'm pretty
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certain that Medicare also has where you could look up
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a specific Medicare provider on there on their website. But
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talk to your trusted friends and family members and find
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out who they use as an agent, that they trust
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them and they've had good results with them. The best
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thing to is on referral basis and then talk to
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that person to see that Medicare agent to see what
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they can do for you, how they can help you
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navigate the whole system. Yes, you can do it on
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your own. You can go to the Medicare website every
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year and look at the updates, the changes, the new plans,
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all of that stuff. But that's going to take a
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lot of time time, and you're going to have to
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be able to understand everything that they're talking about within
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the policies and look at the fine print and look
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at the little nuances, and there's probably going to be
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some medical jargon in there and all of that stuff.
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So in my opinion, it's just best to use some
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trusted professional that is in that field that is required
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to learn and know about all of the updates that changes,
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the new policies. Now, Medicare has extremely strict rules on
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what these agents can and can't do, so unless you
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have asked an agent or filled out a little form
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saying please contact me this fall when regarding annual enrollment,
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I want to talk to you some more about it.
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They're not allowed to just contact you out of the
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blue and start talking to you. So, but unfortunately, scammers,
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some aggressive Medicare agents that aren't necessarily in it for
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the right reasons, they might start calling you. And maybe
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it's towards the end of June already, maybe you're already
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getting phone calls. But annual enrollment starts October fifteenth and
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runs through December seventh, and so I believe Medicare agents
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are allowed starting October first to be able to talk
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to you about anything new with the upcoming changes and
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new plans. So as the months go on here, you're
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going to see an uptick in people trying to get
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a hold of you via the mail. You might see
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some increased commercials on the TV or the radio shows
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and phone calls trying to get you to switch to
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a Medicare plan that just might not be the best
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for you. So have that Medicare agent that's going to
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be your go to person, just like a go to
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tech support person to help you navigate your devices and
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apps and software and all of that. Have a go
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to Medicare person that you can talk to about any
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of that stuff, and always review your explanation of benefits
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when you get them in the mail to make sure
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those charges are yours. All right, I am going to
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go to the next one. This one is let's see
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if this one was on June fifteenth, so just about
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a week ago, titled scammers use couriers to collect cash
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and cryptocurrency investment scams. We've heard about cryptocurrency scams for
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a long time. Cryptocurrency, that mode of payment has been very,
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very popular with the scammers. We've even talked Don here
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about those cryptocurrency ATM machines. About the new law that
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was put in to affect last September twenty sixth of
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twenty twenty five here in Arizona that had the Cryptocurrency
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ATM operators had to They're required to do a lot
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more and put account numbers on your receipts, provide you
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a receipt, have a lot more warning signs. You can
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just google the new Cryptocurrency ATM kiosk Law in Arizona
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and you're going to get a lot of information on it,
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so you can look at all the details. But one
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of the things it also does is for the person
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that is going there and putting money into the machine,
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they're going to get a receipt. And if you have
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your receipt or receipts, if you've done it multiple transactions
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and you have all your receipts and you realize within
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thirty days of that transaction that it was a scam,
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you need to take your receipts and go report it
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to the Attorney general and the police. You're going to
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get your reports. You're going to then contact the Cryptocurrency
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ATM owner, provide them with the reports, and then they
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will they're supposed to refund your money. We had a
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guest on our show a few weeks ago that Gail
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that talked about how she got nine two hundred and
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sixty dollars returned to her. She realized it within thirty
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days and file she had five all five of her
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00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:31.600
receipts filed. The reports, talked to the cryptocurrency ATM owner,
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00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:33.279
and within a couple of days she had a check
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00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:35.720
in the mail. So just keep that in the back