Other states have also taken more severe legal action. In Minnesota, more than 2,000 people have purchased health care coverage from unlicensed insurance operators under the names Consumer Health Benefit Association and Home Health America. The state's attorney general's office filed lawsuits against the companies in 2009.

A spokesman at the attorney general's office said Minnesota also filed lawsuits against two additional companies, Direct Medical Network Solutions and Association Healthcare Management, in February.

"Most scams are uncovered when consumers start complaining to regulators or law enforcement about a suspicious sales pitch or when the plan refuses to pay their legitimate medical bills," explained Quiggle. "At this point, it dawns on the horrified consumers that they've been stuck with large bills and their plan has no intention of covering them."

It is as yet unclear if health insurance scammers will lure as many victims into fake plans as they did during the economic crisis. However, some states are hearing from their residents about suspicious offers.

"We've received probably about a dozen calls in the Charlotte region just in the last few weeks," Tom Bartholomy, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Piedmont, NC, told DOTmed News. "We're seeing reports from better business bureaus across the country, just different pockets popping up here and there. Primarily what we're seeing is people going door to door in senior-prevalent neighborhoods saying that they are with a government sponsored health care initiative and want to give them the latest information on what's going on in national health care," said Bartholomy. "Once they're in, they work to get them signed up on different policies."

How do consumers get tricked into purchasing fake health plans? The coverage people purchase comes in several forms, explained Quiggle. Despite the misleading promises of coverage, the plans can be worthless pieces of paper, or policies that are slim on coverage or medical discount cards, which actually require the consumer to pay most of their medical bills out of pocket.

"Health scammers have a large toolbox of marketing devices. They're sending out blast faxes, they're taking out ads on cable TV, they're setting up websites, they're taking out newspaper ads," said Quiggle. "Even those crudely printed signs stapled to telephone poles are part of their marketing effort. Pushy telemarketers operating out of boiler rooms are another major marketing tool that the scammers are using. They're dialing up consumers by the hundreds trying to sell bogus coverage," he said.

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