Senior Medicare Patrol

The Virgin Islands Senior Medicare Patrol (VI-SMP) is housed at Legal Services of the Virgin Islands. VI-SMP is a grant-funded project of the federal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL). The VI-SMP program priority is to help seniors and their caretakers prevent, detect and report health care fraud, errors, scams, and abuse throughout the territory thru outreach, counseling and education. Medicare fraud is a widespread problem that costs taxpayers in the territory and around the country a great deal of money. Fraud occurs when:

• Healthcare providers charge Medicare for services or medical equipment that they did not provide.
• Providers charge Medicare for services or medical equipment that were not needed.
• Providers overcharge Medicare for services or equipment.
• Insurance companies use untrue information to get people to join a Medicare plan.
• Someone steals and falsely uses another person’s Medicare number.

Thankfully, many healthcare providers will quickly address and resolve issues that are the result of billing errors and/or miscommunication. However, if your provider is reluctant, unwilling, or cannot justify charges made it is important for Medicare beneficiaries to be report these incidents to the Virgin Islands Senior Medicare Patrol team.

If you think you’ve been the victim of Medicare or Medicaid fraud, please email us at smpvi@lsvilaw.org or call 1-877-784-0228.

Community Outreach

Senior Medicare Patrol staff and their highly trained volunteers conduct outreach to Medicare beneficiaries in their communities through group presentations, exhibiting at community events, answering calls to the SMP help lines and one-on-one counseling. Their primary goal is to teach Medicare beneficiaries how to protect their personal identity, identify and report errors on their health care bills, and identify deceptive health care practices, such as illegal marketing, providing unnecessary or inappropriate services and charging for services that were never provided. In some cases, SMPs do more than educate.

When Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries are unable to act on their own behalf to address these problems, the SMPs work with family caregivers and others to address the problems, and if necessary, make referrals to outside organizations who are able to intervene.

Looking for a speaker for your community group or organization?  Call 1-877-784-0228, email us at: smpvi[at]lsvilaw.org or use the form below to schedule a presentation on Medicare and health care fraud.

• Request Community Outreach/Presentation
• Become a Volunteer