July 22, 2025

Beware. I Should Have Known Better

So today we got on the road and had to take one of our sons for a checkup at an urgent care where we are away on vacation before we headed to the next town. While he took my son inside to be examined by a provider (great experience, no issues) my husband reminded me that I needed to call Medicare to check in regarding Mom’s benefits.

I was thankful for the reminder at a time when my other 3 kids were spending their downtime in the car using their screens and I had time to spare and I made the mistake of just doing an online search for the number. It could have been much worse. I could have reached a scammer and I know people who have reached scammers by searching other companies and things have turned out a lot worse.

I will describe why I called in tomorrow’s blog post and what happened when I did actually get a Medicare rep on the phone and what I will have to do from here. Unbelievable.

But for now I will just say that I spent 30 minutes on the phone with a person who turned out to be a broker for a company who works with Medicare. He gave his name, asked for my number in case we got disconnected, played a recording from Medicare regarding things we would discuss, got Mom’s Medicare ID number to put in the system and then let me know that he could not help with my question. I am thankful for him because he then identified his job and told me the Medicare phone number which I should have called directly.

After advocating for this long I truly should have known better and I DO know better but I still (being tired from traveling with 4 kids, being in a different time zone, for several days, and just being in a hurry) went with the online link for simplicity.

It’s not worth it. And I am grateful that so far the worst that happened was that I was on hold FOREVER for this gentleman’s help and then had to be on hold again to speak to an actual Medicare representative.

Stay tuned for the question I asked and the result of that conversation tomorrow. And always call 1-800- Medicare (1-800-633-4227) from the start. Online links will Likely at Best waste your time and lead you no where and at worst could lead to you giving sensitive info to a scammer.