The mission
Medicare beneficiaries are a favorite target for scammers: fake calls from "Medicare," billing for care that never happened, offers that sound too good to be true. Senior Medicare Patrols (SMPs) help beneficiaries, their families and caregivers prevent, detect and report health care fraud, errors and abuse, with a local SMP in every state plus DC, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The SMP National Resource Center needed one national website that sends people to their local SMP in a click, teaches fraud prevention in plain language and works for an older audience. We built that site, smpresource.org, along with the staff portal behind it and SMP Fraud Busters, a game that turns scam prevention into something people actually want to play.
Key Results
50 + territories
Find Help covers every state plus DC, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
National site
WordPress website for the SMP National Resource Center
Fraud Busters
Scam-prevention game on the web, iOS and Android
Staff portal
SMP Login resource library for program staff
A guided tour of smpresource.org and the SMP Fraud Busters game: the state locator, fraud education, the tools that help people act, and the game itself. Switch between the desktop and mobile versions.
This case study walks through the live site section by section: finding help in your state, the fraud education library, the tools that help people track their care and report problems, and the Fraud Busters game in a browser and on phones.
Key features
- Find Help in Your State: one button opens every state and territory, and each state page lists the local SMP phone, website, social links and video
- Fraud education in plain language: fraud schemes, consumer fraud alerts, Medicare card tips, dollars lost to fraud and FAQs
- Tools to act: a My Health Care Tracker, a guide to reading Medicare statements, an online fraud report form and a toll free hotline
- Volunteer signup, SMP news with search and an events finder for the whole country
- SMP Login, a secure staff only portal, and an internal document library for the SMP program
- SMP Fraud Busters, playable in any browser and as apps for iOS and Android, with content managed in WordPress
- Accessibility built in: skip links, an accessibility menu and a low vision mode
Find help in your state, in one click
Most visitors arrive with one question: who can I call? The homepage answers it with a Find Help in Your State button that opens a window listing all 50 states plus DC, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. One more click lands on that state page, with the local SMP phone number, website and social links, plus a video from that state program. Featured News sits right below, so the newest fraud cases are never more than a scroll away.
Fraud education in plain language
The Medicare Fraud section is a library people can trust. Fraud Schemes covers ambulance, durable medical equipment, genetic testing, home health, hospice, medical identity theft, telehealth and more, each with a short plain language summary. Consumer fraud alerts, Medicare card guidance, the dollars lost to fraud and FAQs round it out, and every page keeps a Find Help in Your State button and the section menu close at hand. SMP staff publish alerts and news themselves in WordPress, so the site keeps up with new scams.
Tools that help people take action
Learning about fraud only helps if people can act on it. The My Health Care Tracker page explains how to record doctor visits and services, then check them against a Medicare Summary Notice or Explanation of Benefits, and visitors can request a tracker. A guide walks through reading Medicare statements. When something looks wrong, the Report Fraud page offers an online form, and the toll free hotline, 877-808-2468, appears across the site. Volunteers are the heart of the SMP program, so the Become a Volunteer page has its own signup form.
SMP Fraud Busters: scam prevention you can play
Flyers and articles compete for limited attention, so SMP wanted something more engaging. In SMP Fraud Busters, players live a day in the life of someone who runs into email, phone and in person scams. Each level has a to do list that tracks progress, short brain games reinforce what players learn, and badges and a leaderboard reward people who keep playing. It works in any web browser at game.smpresource.org and smpfraudbusters.org, and as apps on the App Store and Google Play.
WordPress behind the game
Scenarios, quiz questions, educational snippets and badge rules all live in WordPress and reach the game through the WordPress REST API. The SMP team can add a level, refresh a fraud example or update brain game content without touching the game code or waiting on an app store review. The same content also feeds the Fraud Busters minigame inside SMP's Medicare Tracker app. We designed the interface for players who may not be daily gamers: large tap targets, a clear visual hierarchy, progress that is always visible and immediate feedback.
Built for an older audience
Many SMP visitors are older adults, some with low vision and some new to technology. Every page has skip links, an accessibility menu and a low vision mode, and the same predictable navigation runs throughout. Help is always one click away: the Find Help in Your State button and the hotline appear across the site.
Behind the scenes: a portal for the SMP network
The public site is only part of the work. SMP Login gives staff across the national network a secure, staff only portal, and an internal document library supports the day to day work of the program. Everything runs on WordPress, so the National Resource Center manages pages, news, alerts and resources itself.
The results
SMP now has one national home for Medicare fraud prevention that connects people with local help in every state and territory, teaches the warning signs in plain language and gives them simple ways to report a problem. SMP Fraud Busters carries the same message onto phones and into browsers as a game people come back to. One team built the website, the staff portal and the game, so the whole program speaks with one voice.
Stack
- WordPress with Beaver Builder and a custom theme
- Custom state locator with state pages for every SMP
- SMP Login staff portal and internal document library
- SMP Fraud Busters web game, content served by the WordPress REST API
- iOS and Android apps for SMP Fraud Busters
- Accessibility tools, skip links and a low vision mode
Related reading
- WordPress development
- Accessibility audits
- WordPress for government
- WordPress for nonprofits and public programs
- More WordPress and mobile app projects
Ready to build yours?
Planning a public education site, a resource center for a national network, or a game that teaches people something important? Tell us a little about the project and we will get back to you with clear next steps.
Notes: /workspace/raw/design/ready/notes/apppresser-blog-short-form.md Screenshot: /workspace/raw/design/ready/notes/apppresser-fosterpower-short-form.png -->No sales pitch. A short note is enough to start the conversation.
Prefer the full contact form? Go to Contact.
Project leadership by Brian Messenlehner.
