# Protecting Seniors from Health Care Fraud Act of 2021

This bill is designed to help Medicare beneficiaries—primarily seniors—recognize and avoid health care scams by giving them better information about the most common fraud schemes targeting them. Right now, seniors are particularly vulnerable to health care fraud because they use more medical services than younger people, which gives scammers more opportunities to target them. This bill addresses that problem by requiring the government to create and share detailed, regularly updated information about the top health care fraud schemes and how to protect against them.

Here's what the bill actually requires: The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice must work together to produce an annual report identifying the ten most common health care fraud schemes targeting seniors, along with information about how to combat these schemes and protect yourself. This report gets updated every three months to keep pace with new scams as they emerge. The government must then share this information widely—by mailing the top ten fraud list directly to every Medicare beneficiary, posting it on websites, and including updated lists in the quarterly Medicare summary notices that seniors already receive in the mail. The reports will be available in both English and Spanish to reach more people.

The bill also requires the government to gather fraud information from multiple sources, including Medicare hotlines, state health insurance assistance programs, the FBI, the Social Security Administration, and the Federal Trade Commission. This ensures the reports reflect real patterns of fraud that seniors are actually experiencing. The government can hold back specific details if revealing them would compromise an ongoing investigation or inadvertently teach criminals new techniques, but the goal is to give seniors practical, actionable information they can use to spot and avoid scams before they lose money or have their personal information stolen.

Protecting Seniors from Health Care Fraud Act of 2021

Rep. Ruiz, Raul [D-CA-36]

Protecting Seniors from Health Care Fraud Act of 2021 This bill directs the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to report annually to Congress and the public on health care fraud that targets seniors. Specifically, the report must include (1) the 10 most prevalent&nbsp;health care fraud schemes targeted to seniors, (2)&nbsp;steps being taken to combat such schemes,&nbsp;and (3) policy suggestions to improve protections for seniors. The report may omit information or details that would compromise an ongoing investigation or would serve criminals rather than seniors. The report must be posted on certain agency websites and disseminated to Medicare beneficiaries, as specified.