The Community Free Clinic provides healthcare and pharmacy services for free to individuals who qualify. However, we often see patients who have insurance cards that are not connected to Marketplace insurance. While that card looks like an insurance card for a plan, it’s not part of insurance coverage. Having that card can complicate the enrollment process at the Community Free Clinic. The Clinic is privately funded and provides free healthcare and pharmacy services for those who don’t have insurance, so is not part of the Marketplace.
We want to help avoid that confusion that can occur when signing up for insurance online.
Here are some tips to protect yourself from healthcare insurance fraud.
Healthcare.gov is the only place to sign up for Marketplace insurance.
You don’t have to provide a credit card or your social security number, If someone threatens you with legal action if you don’t provide it, that’s a scam. You can contact your local police, and report it.
If you have a question before enrolling, you can contact someone locally.
Marketplace may call you, but you should not provide financial information or personal health information.
When someone from Marketplace calls, calls come from 1-855-997-1890 or 844-477-7500. Caller ID may also show as Health Insurance MP or InsMarketplace. The Marketplace representative will say they’re calling from the Marketplace and provide a first name and agent ID number. Write them down. If you’re not sure the call is from Marketplace or you don’t want to provide information over the phone, you can hang up and contact the Marketplace Call Center directly for help over the phone, ask the representative to mail you a letter with instructions.
Thanks to our friends at NCNavigator for providing information to help the community. NCNavigator helps people learn more about federally funded health insurance.