To Your Health: How to protect yourself from insurance scams – Go Lackawanna

While minding your business at home, you get a call that SEEMS to be coming from your doctor’s office.

You answer, and the person on the phone says they’re updating your records and need some information. Caller ID confirms it’s your doctor’s office, so you give them your name, date of birth and Social Security number before hanging up.

Unfortunately, you’ve just been the victim of a phone “spoofing” scam, and now they’ve got your personal information. And with your personal information in their hands, they can do a lot of harm.

Scams are everywhere, and they can come in almost any form, from a phone call to an email or text message. At first, they can be hard to recognize because scammers know how to take advantage of your trust in certain people and places — like the trust you have in your health care provider.

But with a few tips and rules, you can foil the scammers. Most scammers can be recognized if you know what to look for. For example:

• Scammers’ calls are usually unsolicited, meaning you didn’t do anything to initiate the call from these so-called government agencies, hospitals or nonprofits. Even if you’re connected somehow to an organization, a random call from them may well mean that it is a scammer on the phone.

• If you receive a call from your health insurance company that is unexpected or suspicious, hang up and call your insurance company directly to verify whether the call was real or not.

• Scammers often push you to take immediate action over the phone. If you ever feel pressured, stop and hang up the phone. It’s probably a scammer on the line.

• Scammers often ask for sensitive and private information over the phone, such as a debit or credit card number or Social Security number. Never give out your account numbers or other personal information to anyone over the telephone.

• Many scammers use the excuse that there’s a problem with your account and they need your information to fix it. They may also tell you that you’ve won a prize and they need you to act now to claim it. Don’t fall for it. Call back on a number you independently verify as the company’s real contact.

• Don’t rely on caller ID to be accurate. Scammers can create IDs intended to look familiar and trustworthy. There are usually subtle differences between the numbers and the names on caller ID, so take a close look, or again, call them back.

• Beware of fake websites that scammers create to look credible. Do your own search for real websites before submitting information at any site. It is WAY too easy to make a website LOOK credible these days.

Look for a list of scams currently circulating in your region. Geisinger provides a webpage, geisinger.org/security, with information about scams we’re seeing in our area and how to avoid them.

The site also offers information on how to avoid federal and tax scams as well as insurance scams. AARP keeps track of ongoing scams at aarp.org/money/scams-fraud, and the federal government offers information at usa.gov/scams-and-frauds.

A little skepticism and doing your due diligence can protect you against scammers. Any request for your personal information should be a red flag. Stop the conversation, delete the email or block the phone number. After all, if they can’t fool you, they can’t scam you