MaineGeneral Health is warning residents to be on the lookout for a phone scam where a caller offers to reduce hospital debt in exchange for the person’s credit card information, according to a press release from the hospital.
A similar scam was reported in early March involving patients who received services at Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan.
In the MaineGeneral scam, automated and non-automated phone calls appear to come from local phone numbers and the callers offer to help with debt reduction or to pay hospital bills.
“This is a case of Caller ID Spoofing, a manipulation of the Caller ID feature that allows the scammers to disguise their true identity — and they are disguising themselves as MaineGeneral,” the press release states.
MaineGeneral does not make automated phone calls regarding patient billing, but it does make outbound calls seeking payment of past-due bills. Anyone concerned that a phone call may be from a scammer is advised to end the call and call the hospital switchboard at 626-1000 or 872-1000 and ask to be transferred to the billing office.
The hospital notes that it has reported the scam to the authorities.
MaineGeneral has medical facilities in Augusta and Waterville.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.