Hawthorne Press Tribune
Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - September 6, 2018
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............3
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................4
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Food.......................................5
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Lawndale..............................4
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
79˚/69˚
Saturday
Sunny
82˚/70˚
Sunday
Sunny
83˚/69˚
The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne
The Cougar Comeback Awards!
Hawthorne High School was proud to recognize some exceptional Cougars last week at the first-ever Cougar Comeback Awards! Thanks to Hawthorne Police and Centinela Youth Services for making this
event possible. Photo Courtesy of Hawthorne High
Medicare Cards Are New–So Is
This Scam to Steal Your Identity
By Rob McCarthy
Medicare cards designed to prevent fraud
and identity theft are being mailed to eligible
South Bay residents, and seniors should beware
of a scam arising from the distribution
of these new cards.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s
Office issued a warning and advised seniors
to be careful about sharing their personal
information with anyone claiming to be a
healthcare provider either in person at their
door or over the phone.
The Medicare card fraudsters will call
seniors and tell them they must provide their
Social Security number or other personal
information, or make a payment to receive
or activate their new Medicare cards. That
simply isn’t true, according to the DA’s office.
Medicare enrollees should receive their
new cards automatically from the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The
agency began mailing the new cards, which
no longer include Social Security numbers, in
April and will continue through April 2019,
officials said.
Tips for protecting personal identity and
Medicare benefits include:
- Don’t share your Social Security number,
personal information or Medicare number except
with legitimate health care and insurance
professionals with whom you initiated contact.
- Don’t make any payments to receive or
activate your Medicare card.
- If you receive a suspicious call, hang up
and call 1-800-MEDICARE for any questions
about your benefits status.
Medical identity theft occurs when someone
steals or uses your personal information, says
the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Obtaining an insured person’s name, Social
Security or Medicare number allows thieves
to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare and
other health insurers.
“Medical identity theft can disrupt
your medical care, and wastes taxpayer
dollars,” the federal health insurer for
older Americans says on its website.
Medicare will mail new identification cards
to its 55 million beneficiaries, the federal
government said.
The new Medicare ID cards have only one
purpose: to help prevent identity theft. The
number on the current Medicare ID card is
the person’s Social Security number. This is
used too by the Social Security Administration,
healthcare providers and health plans.
“In the hands of an unscrupulous person, a
Social Security number can open the door to
all kinds of mischief and misuse,” explains an
article on the website Next Avenue. Retired
PBS news anchor Bill Moyers is behind the
Next Avenue site, which addresses health,
financial and social issues affecting Americans
55 and older.
The CMS is replacing the old Medicare
numbers - a do-over for seniors and recipients
who’ve been targeted before by identify
thieves. “Once bitten, twice shy”” is the
warning coming from the area’s top cop
and government officials trying to manage
Medicare costs and premiums by limiting
fraud in the system.
The new cards will be distributed to Medicare
beneficiaries and to people who are eligible
for Medicare through the Railroad Retirement
Board’s pension plans. There is one important
exception: People who are enrolled in a
Medicare Advantage plan (like an HMO or
PPO) will continue to use the plan’s ID card
as their main card for Medicare. Those cards
already have a unique ID number that is not
the Social Security number. Also, Medicare
prescription drug plans will continue to assign
and use their own cards.
Each new number will have 11 digits and
will be assigned randomly. The new numbers
are “non-intelligent,” which means that they
don’t have any hidden or special meaning.
They will be a combination of single-digit
numbers and upper-case (capital) letters. All
the letters of the alphabet will be used, except
S, L, O, I, B and Z, to make the combination
easier to read -- if not to remember.
The new cards will be printed on regularweight
paper and will be a little smaller than
the old ones -- about the size of a credit
card. Another change: the new cards do not
indicate gender.
A 2015 report prepared for the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated
that $60 billion of American taxpayer money,
or more than 10 percent of Medicare’s total
budget, was lost to fraud, waste, abuse and
improper payments four years ago.
An attempt by someone to steal your
identify isn’t always obvious, so officials
offer some defensive tactics that seniors and
healthcare consumers can take so they don’t
become victims.
They start with the advice to just walk
See Medicare Cards, page 3