Lee Health warns of MyChart phishing aimed at seniors

Lee Health says text messages and emails offering a MyChart Medicare Kit or a Senior Health Package are not from the health system, and are being sent by third parties trying to collect personal and sensitive information from its patients

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 26, 2026

Stock photo

Stock photo. Not the actual scene. Photo: Towfiqu barbhuiya / Pexels

What it changes

If you or a relative are on MyChart and a message has arrived offering a MyChart Medicare Kit or a Senior Health Package, Lee Health's position is that it did not send it. Its statement is unusually direct on this point: those messages are not from or associated with Lee Health and are being distributed by third parties seeking to obtain personal and sensitive information. The health system's guidance is to avoid clicking any link in such a message and to avoid providing personal details, and the practical version of that is to delete it rather than to reply, to open the portal yourself from the app or from a browser address you typed, and to ring your provider's office on a number you already have if you want to know whether a message was genuine. Nobody legitimate loses anything if you take the slow route. Two things about this particular campaign make it worth more than the usual passing scam notice. The first is who it is aimed at. The lures are built around Medicare and around a senior health package, which is a deliberate choice of target, and the people most likely to be reached by them are the people for whom a health portal message carries the most weight and who are least likely to treat an official-looking health notice with suspicion. In a region with Southwest Florida's age profile that is not an abstract concern. If you have an older parent or neighbour on MyChart, the useful thing you can do today is tell them what the two lures are called, because a named scam is far easier to spot than a general warning to be careful. The second is what the messages are actually after. This is not a fake invoice trying to take a payment. Lee Health describes third parties seeking personal and sensitive information, and WINK reports the scheme is trying to take patients' personal information to sell on. That means the damage does not announce itself the way a missing sum of money does. Someone can hand over a date of birth, an insurance number and a portal login, see nothing go wrong that day, and find the consequence months later in a medical billing or identity problem. So the absence of an obvious loss is not evidence that nothing happened. Anyone who has already clicked and entered details should change the portal password, treat that password as compromised anywhere else it was reused, and watch statements and explanation-of-benefits notices rather than assume it came to nothing. It is also worth knowing what the portal is not. Lee Health's own MyChart page states that MyChart should never be used for urgent or emergent medical matters, that messages sent through it are monitored during business hours only, and that anyone needing immediate attention should go to an Emergency Department or call 911. A message claiming urgency and demanding you act through a link is asking you to do the one thing the portal is explicitly not for. Lee Health's standing advice on its own page is broader than this week's campaign, and it is the line to remember after the Medicare Kit wording is retired and replaced with something else: fraudulent emails, text messages or phone calls may use the MyChart name or logo to appear legitimate. The branding proves nothing. The route you took to the message is what matters.

Lee Health is warning patients that messages arriving by text and email under the MyChart name are not coming from the health system.

The messages promise what they call a MyChart Medicare Kit or a Senior Health Package. In a statement given to WINK News, Lee Health said such messages are not from or associated with Lee Health and are being distributed by third parties seeking to obtain personal and sensitive information.

The health system's advice to anyone who receives one is to avoid clicking on links and to avoid providing personal details.

The lures are aimed at older patients

MyChart is the patient portal Lee Health uses to let people see test results, message a physician's office, manage appointments and pay bills. It is used by many hospital systems, not only this one.

Both of the offers being used as bait are built around older patients. WINK reports the wider campaign is reaching hospitals and health systems across the country, and that the messages are attempting to take patients' personal information to sell online.

Neither Lee Health nor the station reports any breach of a Lee Health system, and nothing in either account suggests patient records were accessed. What is described is impersonation of a widely used brand.

Lee Health's own page carries a standing warning

Separately from the statement, Lee Health's MyChart page carries its own warning about this class of fraud.

Be aware of phishing scams, it reads. Protect your personal information. Fraudulent emails, text messages, or phone calls may use the MyChart name or logo to appear legitimate.

That warning is general and predates the Medicare Kit wording. It is the more durable point, because the specific offer used as bait will change while the technique does not.

What the portal is not for

The same page states that MyChart should never be used for urgent or emergent medical matters, that messages sent through it are monitored during business hours only, and that anyone who needs immediate attention should go to an Emergency Department or call 911.

A message that manufactures urgency and asks you to act through a link is asking for something the portal is not built to do.

Lee Health says text messages and emails offering a MyChart Medicare Kit or a Senior Health Package are not from the health system, and are being sent by third parties trying to collect personal and sensitive information from its patients

The lures are aimed at older patients

Lee Health's own page carries a standing warning

What the portal is not for

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