Seniors have new incentives for getting involved in cracking down on Medicare fraud, which costs Americans $60 billion US annually. Medicare redesigned its billing statements to make the form more senior friendly for looking over to ensure the services paid by Medicare were indeed the services received by the provider.

The new form clearly states that tips leading to uncovering fraud will be eligible for incentives up to $1000. This next part isn’t exactly new; it’s just been underplayed until now.

Access it via Medicare’s secure Web site, www.mymedicare.gov. Registration is easy. The form is minimal and the fonts are big and easy to read. The information is provided in plain English. The paper version will be similarly revised early next year.

Last year, people who reported suspicious activity helped Medicare save taxpayers $4 billion.

To make it harder to hide mistakes or deliberate fraud, Medicare will be stripping down the elements of the forms that make them so complexity of the forms, such as removing the medical jargon and abbreviations and making them shorter.

This affects you: if Medicare pays for something you didn’t receive you could be denied coverage when you really need it because to them it’s been paid for.