Complaints abound re Medicare Part D marketing by insurance companies
Bush administration officials say they have received scores ofcomplaints about the aggressive tactics used by some insurancecompanies and agents to market Medicare’s new prescription drugbenefit.
The officials said they would take disciplinary action if they found that the tactics had broken federal rules.
Possible violations reported to Medicare officials in the past fewweeks include uninvited door-to-door solicitation of business andmisrepresentation of insurance products.
Federal and stateofficials said they had also received complaints that some insuranceagents identified themselves as working for the Social SecurityAdministration or the federal Centers for Medicare and MedicaidServices.
In addition, they said, some insurance agents haveasked beneficiaries for personal information like Social Securitynumbers and credit card or bank account numbers.
“These stepsare illegal, totally inappropriate and unacceptable,” said Patricia P.Smith, who works with health plans as director of the MedicareAdvantage Group at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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