MIAMI (WSVN) - A glitch in Medicare’s system has overcharged hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries in healthcare expenses, charging them double what they normally pay.
Sara Manduley is one of hundreds of thousands who have Medicare for insurance and pay a premium every month for additional coverage.
“For me, $135.50 is a lot of money, and I bet for a whole bunch of people, the same,” Mandulaey said. “Some people even pay more.”
Every dollar counts for this mother and grandmother. She makes sure she budgets and sticks to a plan.
“I live day by day, penny to penny,” Mandulaey said. “I get paid every two weeks, so I make my budget, I prepare my budget of what payments go out with this money that I get paid in those two weeks.”
So she was a bit shocked when she happened to check her bank account last week.
“And I saw that I got hit on the 20th, which is my Medicare payment,” Mandulaey said. “It got deducted two times, $135.50 and $135.50, and I said, ‘What?’”
Like that, she was out of more than $100 earmarked for other bills, so Sara quickly called her bank and disputed the duplicate charge.
“I consider myself lucky because I looked that day. If I wouldn’t have, I would’ve gotten hit with overdrawn charges,” Mandulaey said.
A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirmed there was a nationwide glitch in processing auto payments, leading to double charges for more than 400,000 plus beneficiaries and are “working to have the erroneous deductions credited back to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts.”
“They should’ve seen it. When all of a sudden you see your bank account, and in the bank account, instead of $100 you have $100,000, ‘Wait! Something happened here,'” Mandulaey said. “Immediately, but no, they didn’t send out letters of apology. They haven’t sent anything, not even call people or nothing.”
Now, Mandulaey plans to keep a close eye on her bank account, and she’s hopeful the fight for thousands of others to get their money back isn’t too difficult.
“How do you fight the government to get your fees back and other charges? How do you fight them?” Mandulaey asked. “They’re not going to pay you that.”
The spokesperson for Medicare said that any beneficiaries who have been charged fees by their bank or any late payment fees can request a refund. If they need additional support, they can contact the Medicare office.
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