Kay Kindig's long involvement in health care issues and caregiving in Kootenai County has taken a new turn.

Kindig, a retired nurse and former director of Panhandle Health District, is now working with a group of volunteers to teach seniors and their caregivers how to defend against Medicare fraud and abuse.

Kindig is the volunteer coordinator for the Area Agency on Aging's Senior Medicare Patrol.

"There is much in the news these days about fraud, abuse and errors in the Medicare system," Kindig said. "Fortunately our credit cards have fraud units working to protect us but when it comes to Medicare, we have to become our own fraud inspectors."

The focus of Senior Medicare Patrol is helping seniors protect their personal Medicare information, detect discrepancies in their Medicare summary notices and report questionable billing items to Medicare.

One of the tools Senior Medicare Patrol volunteers have to offer seniors and their caregivers is a Personal Health Care Journal. The little booklet, created by the U.S. Administration on Aging, offers seniors an easy way to track their doctor appointments, tests and treatments. Like a small diary, users can handwrite all their medical conditions and activities and refer back to it when they receive their Medicare statements.

"You have to be a bit of a detective to understand the bills, but when you can go back and track that this is the date something was done, it makes it much easier," Kindig said.

It's a way to uncover possible fraud, she said. But sometimes an inaccuracy is just human error, something that was miscoded during the billing process.

"When you find these discrepancies, you can go to the provider and get it resolved," Kindig said.

She said some seniors are reluctant to ask questions before paying a bill because they don't want to leave something unpaid for any period of time. Other times, bills are paid in full by Medicare, so patients don't review their summary notices closely or at all, something Kindig said she has been guilty of herself.

It is still important to review your Medicare bills, she said.

"It doesn't cost me anything, but it's costing somebody," Kindig said. "If that amount is on there, it's coming out of somebody's pocket and it's probably us taxpayers."

Kindig has six volunteers working with her now, and she hopes to have more.

Senior Medicare Patrol is one of many programs staffed by volunteers through the Area Agency on Aging's Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, better known as RSVP.

Senior Medicare Patrol volunteers are available to go out and speak to groups about the program, and they have thousands of "Protect, Detect, Report" journals to hand out free to those who need them.

"I would like to have one in everyone's hand in the area," Kindig said.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Kindig by email at kkindig@aaani.org or by phone at (208)-667-3179 Ext. 232.