U.S. Is Turning to Senior Citizens to Help Spot Medicare Fraud

The government will start offering senior citizens rewards of up to $1,000 for help catching doctors or other health care providers defrauding Medicare, Vice President Al Gore announced Wednesday.

“Wherever you live, if you find fraud in the Medicare system and you turn out to be right and it’s eliminated because of your work, you can keep 10% of the money we save, up to $1,000,” Gore told senior citizens at the 40th anniversary convention of the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

Medicare, the nation’s health care program for the elderly, is expected to run short of cash when baby boomers begin to retire in about 2010.

Meanwhile, the program loses billions of dollars a year to fraud and waste. New regulations Gore described will enlist senior citizens in the effort to stop the drain beginning Jan. 1.

“I’m going to check my bills more,” said Patricia Holm, 70, of Quincy, Ill., who attended Gore’s speech.

Congress approved the reward program in concept as part of health care legislation passed in 1996, and the Health and Human Services Department already runs a toll-free fraud hotline senior citizens can call to report suspicious activity.

Gore noted the success of a pilot project started by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that has trained senior citizens in a dozen states to spot Medicare fraud.

One Iowa woman recently saved the program more than $1 million when she reported that Medicare was billed twice after she was told her first flu shot was faulty and she needed another. It turned out Medicare had been double-billed for many people’s shots.

The vice president also used his speech at the AARP convention, expected to attract more than 20,000 people over the course of three days, to appeal to senior citizens for support on issues important to Democrats campaigning for this fall’s congressional elections.

He ran through the party’s legislative wish list, including a “patient’s bill of rights” to protect Americans from abuses by health insurers that increasingly limit choices to save money.