As we all know, health insurance can be complicated and expensive.  During the Covid pandemic eligible families were able to turn to Medicaid’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for help, but now that the pandemic has ended some state CHIP programs are contacting CHIP recipients to update their enrollment.  Unfortunately, scammers posing as CHIP workers are also reaching out and they can be pretty convincing when they ask for personal information such as your credit card number or bank account number which they then use to make you a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

The real CHIP program in your state may well reach out to you by email, phone or text message, however, it is important to remember that they will never ask you to pay to continue enrollment in the program and they will never ask you for your bank account number or credit card number.

Even if your Caller ID indicates the call is coming from your state’s CHIP program, scammers can use a technique called “spoofing” to manipulate your Caller ID to make it appear that the call is legitimate when it is not.

It is a good policy to never click on a link in an email or text message unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate.  In this case, even if the email or text message appears to come from your state’s CHIP program, the better option is to go directly to your state’s Medicaid website which you can find here https://www.medicaid.gov/about-us/beneficiary-resources/index.html#statemenu

You also can go to https://www.healthcare.gov/ to compare insurance plans, coverage and eligibility requirements.

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