Medicare Scams Arrive Ahead of Open Enrollment
What's happening
The current wave is email- and text-first, dressed as the healthcare portals and plan brands people already use, and timed to a season when real plan mail is arriving daily.
Every fall, from October 15 to December 7, roughly 68 million Americans on Medicare are invited to review and change their coverage. For insurers and brokers it is the busiest selling season of the year. For scammers it is the one window when a stranger calling about your Medicare benefits doesn't sound strange at all.
Health-insurance lures in Scamwise data have grown roughly fivefold since June, and Medicare is the brand at the center of them. Three scripts dominate:
- The "free Medicare kit" email — the biggest single pattern we see. It borrows the branding of MyChart, the patient portal tens of millions of people use for real medical records, and offers a "completely new Medicare kit" or a thank-you gift for "participating in your digital healthcare." The link leads to a survey that ends by asking for a card number to cover shipping. The emails come from throwaway domains, not from any hospital or from Medicare.
- The benefits robocall — "If you have Medicare Part A and B, you may be eligible for a food allowance" or "your Medicare is lacking information." The caller wants your Medicare number, which is worth as much to a fraudster as a Social Security number: it can be used to bill Medicare for equipment and services you never received, and those false claims can follow you for years.
- The "benefits expiring" text — "Your Medicare application is pending. Check your status before benefits expire," with a shortened link to a lookalike medicare.gov page that harvests personal details.
The important trend here is that Medicare scams are no longer only a phone problem aimed at seniors on landlines. The current wave is email- and text-first, dressed as the healthcare portals and plan brands people already use, and timed to a season when real plan mail is arriving daily. The genuine noise of open enrollment is the camouflage.
As we watch this trend, we're keeping an eye on "flex card" and grocery-allowance pitches — real features of some Medicare Advantage plans that scammers have turned into a lure — and on fake "plan comparison" sites that collect Medicare numbers under the guise of helping you shop.
Seen something like this?
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Second channel checks
Tips for verifying through official channels
- 1
Check it in Scamwise first.
Forward the "Medicare kit" or plan email to submit@scamwise.com, or paste the text or the number that called into scamwise.com or the Scamwise mobile app. The same throwaway domains and callback numbers show up again and again through enrollment season. If you're helping a parent, do it together — it's a two-minute habit.
- 2
Medicare doesn't call, text or email you out of the blue.
It communicates by mail unless you've asked otherwise. Treat your Medicare number like a credit card and never give it to anyone who contacts you first.
- 3
Shop plans only at medicare.gov, typed yourself.
Go to medicare.gov directly. A "free kit," "grocery card," "flex card" or "Medicare app" that asks for a card number is a scam, however official the logo looks.