SOS: Speaking of Seniors - Medicare Nine Years Behind

On December 19, 2016, one of our clients brought his friend to our office for my help. A few years ago, I had helped the client who brought his friend with a medical bill problem.

His friend first talked to one of our agents who asked me to help. For over an hour, I made phone calls with the new client. He had Medicare. But, Medicare was not paying anything on his medical bills. He is from Greece and speaks Greek much better than English. He lives in Saint John Township in Lake County, Indiana.

In our phone calls, we discovered that Medicare did not update his record for almost nine years. He started using Medicare as his primary insurer on January 1, 2008. But, Medicare never changed his status from being on an employer group insurance program – for nine years.

At the conclusion of our meeting, I wrote a “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN” letter and made copies. I told him to take or send a copy of the letter to every doctor, hospital, or laboratory that he had used and to which he owed money. Substituting the words “our client” for the actual name of our client, here is the letter that I wrote. Everyone who believes the federal Medicare system works fine should read this letter.

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Our client and I phoned Medicare offices today to learn what was causing problems for his Medicare billing.

We learned that Medicare records for our client had not been updated for nine years. Medicare became his primary insurer on January 1, 2008, but the records were never updated. This caused incorrect processing and nonpayment by Medicare of all his claims since that date.

The Medicare representative with whom we spoke assured us that his records would be updated and corrected as of January 1, 2017.

Please, refile any claims for medical services to our client for any date of service from January 1, 2008 to the present after January 1, 2017.

Our client did not cause this problem. Medicare caused this problem. Please, cooperate with our client to get your claims processed correctly.

Thank you for your cooperation.

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The help that I gave this client was FREE OF CHARGE. This insurance agency “goes the extra mile” for our senior citizen clients. Does your insurance agent or agency give this high level of service to senior citizen clients? If not, why not?

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Woodrow Wilcox is the senior medical bill problem solver at Senior Care Insurance Services in Merrillville, Indiana. That is the largest senior citizen oriented insurance agency in the Midwest. For over six years, Woodrow Wilcox has helped senior citizens with medical bill problems with Medicare and VA clinics. He has saved senior citizens over $1 million in wrongful charges. For more health care articles by Wilcox, visit www.medicareproblems.net or www.woodrowwilcox.com. © 2013 Woodrow Wilcox. Re-published here with the permission of the author.

Woodrow Wilcox

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