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Laser Hair Removal Facials Prepare Your Skin for the Sun BOTOX ® and fillers 831-226-2108 | 1595 38 th Avenue, Capitola rejuvenatemedi-spa.com CoolSculpting Elite – Spring Deals! Healthy Weight Loss – Semaglutide! 10 Tips for Healthy Feet Feet are the foundation of our physical and emotional well-being. Healthy feet allow us to walk, play and travel, which is essential to our physical and mental health. Your health is the one thing you can invest in that gives a generous return on investment because it will last a lifetime. Unfortunately, too often are our feet taken for granted until we have pain. By the time pa- tients started to seek my foot & ankle care, there had been years of neglect which may take many more years to restore. The best thing you can do for your feet is give it more attention with these easy self-care tips. Here are 10 easy self- care tips to keep your feet healthy by your local holistic podiatrist: 1. Look at your feet from the top, bottom and in between the toes. Check for calluses, cuts, moles, or changes in shape or quality of your toenails and skin. Knowing what you start with helps you recognize changes to dis- cuss with your podiatrist. 2. Moisturize your feet daily to avoid dry cracking skin that may open and lead to pain or infection. Avoid applying between the toes. 3. Do not soak open skin which can hinder healing or cause infection. 4. Avoid barefoot walk- ing to reduce the risk of cuts, contracting plantar wart or fungus, and foot pain. 5. Make sure your shoes give enough space for your toes to wiggle freely. Cramped toes can lead to deformities like bunion and hammertoes. 6. Trim your toenails straight across the edge of the skin and round the corners, rather than digging into them which can cause an ingrown toenail if a spicule is missed. Make sure each member in the household has their own set of nail clippers to avoid contam- ination. Wipe them clean before and after use with rubbing alcohol. 7. Maintain flexibility in your feet with daily activities like yoga that focuses on stretching and strengthening the foot and calf muscles. 8. Do not use other people's prescription medications for your foot problem. You want to en- sure you have the correct diagnosis with the right medication so check with your podiatrist. 9. Pay attention to your diet. An unbalanced diet can lead to problems in the lower extremity such as chronic pain and inflammation. Stress can even induce problems like warts or Athlete's foot. Reducing refined sugar and processed foods while increasing water intake have huge benefits to your body. Aim to increase plants and lean protein instead. By Tea Nguyen, DPM CEO of Pacific Point Podiatry 10. Endorse profession- al help. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can seem overwhelming but it doesn't have to be that way. There is an abun- dance of resources right at your fingertips to help you with areas that you might need more focus on. As a holistic podiatrist, I aim to help people prevent long term foot problems with preventive foot care and address foot pain and deformity with minimally inva- sive options. In more chronic conditions such as diabetes and neuropa- thy, I adopt a functional medicine approach that looks into the root causes of their foot problem with science-based care so one can maintain their well- ness and prevent devastat- ing complications such as amputations. What's unique about my practice is that I do not contract with insur- ance which allows me to offer options beyond insurance restrictions, such as preventive care and innovative minimally invasive options. This model is called Direct Care and I am excited to be the first independently owned podiatry practice to introduce this to Santa Cruz County. It is my mission to help patients have functional feet so they can continue to have a physically and emotion- ally vibrant life. To schedule a consul- tation with me, visit 831feet.com or call 831- 288-3400. Tea Nguyen, DPM CEO of Pacific Point Podiatry Thank you for voting me as Best Podiatrist for a second time! Adobe Stock photo How to Avoid Medicare Fraud Medicare fraud costs Medicare an estimated $60-$80 billion per year. We all pay into Medicare with the expectation that our healthcare costs will be covered when we are retired by this government program. When Medicare loses billions of dollars to fraud, we all lose billions of dollars to fraud. Medicare fraud can have a devastating impact on beneficiaries and their families. Most times, people don't recognize fraud has taken place until Medicare denies a payment for a prescrip- tion, service or piece of equipment a beneficiary needs because Medicare has already paid for that service during a fraudu- lent transaction using that person's account. Then, that person or their family has to pay the cost out of pocket. It can be a loss of dignity for the person for being defrauded and can consume many hours of time and emotional frustration repairing the damage done by fraud. It is important to note that neither Medicare nor Social Security Adminis- tration (SSA) will call you unless they are returning your call. Initial commu- nication will always be by mail from both agencies. If someone calls and says they are from SSA or Medicare, and you have not called them…hang up! You can always call back using the local office for Medicare or SSA. Some other quick clues? ● Medicare won't charge you for a new card. If a caller claims you need to pay a fee to get a new or upgraded Medicare card, it's a scam. ● Medicare doesn't need to "verify" your informa- tion and never threatens to cancel benefits. These are all common scams to steal peoples Medicare information. The scammers have gotten good at disguising their calls. Two different reports from local folks in Santa Cruz County stated scammers had caller ID names listed as PAMF and another as SC Sheriffs. Both calls started with questions related to recent medical office visits followed by requests for their Medicare numbers. That clued both potential victims that something wasn't right with the phone calls. Both times the potential victims hung up on the caller, disrupting the fraud scheme. Unfor- tunately, many more folks do not know the warning signs of a fraud call. Another current scam is for a fraudster to call a victim saying the victim's cardiologist had ordered a cardiac genetic test kit. The fraudster claims they need the victim's cardiol- ogist name and victim's Medicare number to confirm the victim is the correct patient. A genetic testing kit is sent in the mail with instructions on how to complete the test and send it back through the mail. The fraudster then erroneously bills Medicare upwards of $7500 of which Medicare pays $6000 to the fraud- ster. Last year in 2021, one in every four cases reported to California Se- nior Medicare Patrol was a genetic testing scam. Genetic testing fraud occurs when Medicare is billed for a test or screen- ing that was not medically necessary and/or was not ordered by a beneficiary's treating physician. How do you avoid a genetic testing scam? ● Refuse to give out your personal information or accept screening services, including a cheek swab, from someone at a com- munity event, local fair, farmer's market, parking lot, mall, senior center, home show, church-spon- sored wellness event, and/ or any other large event. ● Go to your own doctor to assess your condition, not a doctor on the phone you've never met from a company you don't know. By Bill Proulx Senior Network Services ● Always read your Medicare Summa- ry Notice (MSN) or Explanation of Benefits (EOB). The words "gene analysis" or "molecular pathology" as service codes may indicate questionable genetic testing. ● Refuse the delivery of any genetic testing kit that was not ordered by your physician. ● Be suspicious of anyone who offers free genetic testing and then requests your Medicare number. If your personal information is compro- mised, it may be used in other fraud schemes. ● Contact the California Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) for help. SMPs across the nation em- power and assist Medi- care beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to prevent, detect, and report health care fraud, errors, and abuse. Another fraud scheme is for braces. Watch out for scammers broadcast- ing TV commercials or calling you by phone to offer "free or low cost" knee, back and other orthotic braces. If you give them your Medi- care number, you could end up with boxes of unwanted and unneeded braces, a compromised Medicare number, and potentially denied Medicare claims if you require such braces in the future. Medicare only pays for durable medical equip- ment based on medical necessity — meaning it's an item you really need for your medical condition – and requires prescription from your doctor, not a doctor you've never met, or a doctor on TV. How do you protect yourself from this type of fraud? ● If you receive a call from someone offering you a "free" brace cov- ered by Medicare, hang up immediately. ● If medical equipment is delivered to you, don't accept it unless it was ordered by your physi- cian. Refuse the delivery or re urn it to the sender. Keep a record of the sender's name and the date you returned the items. ● Be suspicious of anyone who offers you free medical equipment and then requests your Medicare number. If your personal informa- tion is compromised, it may be used in other fraud schemes. ● Only your doctor should prescribe and/or approve any requests for durable medical equip- ment. Always be cautious of unsolicited requests for your Medicare num- ber. Do not give your Medicare information to anyone you don't know. If you, a loved one or a client you know come across such scams, please report them to the California SMP at 1-855- 613-7080 or your Santa Cruz County HICAP at 831-462-5510. See the HICAP website at www.seniornetworkser- vices.org for upcoming Medicare education and Medicare Fraud presen- tations