Woman's Medicare cut off after government mistakenly declares her dead

HUDSON, Fla. (WFLA) — Katherine Brown was suddenly cut off from accessing her Medicare health insurance.

The reason? The government thinks she's dead.

"According to their records, I died March 27, 2023, which was one day before my birthday," Brown said. "And I kept telling them, I said, "I have been really sick and there were times when I thought I might be dead, but I assure you, I am alive and well and talking to you."

Brown says says she discovered this big mistake when she tried to fill a prescription at the pharmacy earlier this month.

She was told her Medicare account was no longer active. She logged onto her account online to find this message: "You can no longer use this account. If you're the estate representative, call..."

Brown tells me she called, but Medicare said they got the information from Social Security, and Social Security says no, this is a Medicare issue.

Consumer Investigator Shannon Behnken reached out to Social Security and within hours Brown says they called her to say they're reaching out to Medicare to provide the right documentation to fix this.