Overview
The goal of the Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) Program is to educate and empower beneficiaries to take an active role in the detection and prevention of health care fraud and abuse, with a focus on the Medicare and Medicaid programs. SMP recruits, trains and guides retirees from various professions to serve as volunteers to help other seniors in their own communities become better healthcare consumers. These volunteers educate beneficiaries on how to monitor their health care costs and identify deceptive health care practices such as bundling charges to hide non-covered fees, filing bogus claims for products or services never rendered, altering billing codes to inflate Medicare and Medicaid claims and ordering unnecessary or inappropriate products or services to increase revenues.