Local doctor warns of ‘free Medicare equipment’ scam

LOWVILLE- A local Doctor in Lewis County is warning of a scam that may be gaining some traction in popularity, and not in a good way.

Dr. Manoj Vora, M.D., who is Board Certified Internal Medicine for Lewis County Health System, says he recently has been notified by a few of his patients regarding phone calls from an apparent scammer.

His office told us there were a few patients who received calls from a 1-800 number. Dr. Vora’s name was attached to the number on caller I.D, but these phone calls were not placed from Dr. Vora, or his office.

These people, who were contacted, say they were met by someone portraying to be a Medicare representative, pushing heavily by imploring them to agree to receive free medical equipment, or else have their Medicare terminated.

In order to process the free equipment, the caller will ask for your Medicare number, which gives them access to all private medical information the patient has on record, according to another similar report documented in January.

Dr. Vora says anyone who receives a call like this should hang-up and report it to proper authorities.

This is the first case scenario where local medical professionals are aware of this scam under the guise of a doctor’s name, according to Dr. Vora’s office.

We have reached out to other medical offices to see if there have been any other local examples of this scam.

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