CMS notifies providers of Medicare scam at doctors' offices
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services alerted healthcare providers Thursday to a scam involving fake Medicare faxes to physician offices.Perpetrators have been sending faxes to physician offices posing as the Medicare carrier or Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC), according to CMS. The fax instructs physician staff to respond to a questionnaire to provide an account information update within 48 hours to prevent a gap in Medicare payments. The fax may have the CMS logo and/or contractor logo to make it look authentic.
Medicare FFS (Fee-For-Service) providers, including physicians and non-physician practitioners should be wary of this type of request, CMS said. Medicare providers should only send information to a Medicare contractor using the address found in the download section of the CMS Web site. Go to
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNGenInfo/ or http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicareProviderSupEnroll.
