This guest post comes from Michael Cahill, editor of the Vista Health Solutions Blog. He writes about the health care system, the health insurance industry and the Affordable Care Act.

For many American families, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is going to make health insurance costs that much better. However, stories of scammers have made many people worried that they will be on the receiving end of a health care con. This does not have to be you. By putting the following information into action you can be sure that you won’t be a sitting duck for cyber criminals.

#1: Knowing Is The Best Defense

The ACA may seem like an intimidating piece of legislature, but the basics are not too hard to get a grasp of. Realize what your options are inside and outside of the marketplace, and understand how the ACA is affecting Medicaid, employers and individuals. The government has provided a lot of great resources for learning about the new law. The Department of Health & Human Services has a good primer here, and healthcare.gov has a ton of information. For those feeling ambitious, you can read the bill itself at the first link.

#2: Stay Skeptical

One of the most common scams is people pretending to be government workers. In short, if they ask for information that they should know or that they don’t need, they are probably scammers. When it comes to sensitive personal information, government workers know what they need to know, and that certainly doesn’t include your bank account number. The navigators working for the government are there to help you understand the new system and choose the plan that is right for you, not to sell you a plan.

#3: Don’t Be An Easy Target

You might think that stealing your online identity requires someone to have a great deal of finesse and skill. In fact, it isn’t that complicated. A lot of sites use secret questions to make password recovery more secure. However, secret questions that ask for things like your father’s middle name or your mother’s maiden name can likely be answered after someone spends a few minutes on Google. For added security you can try a few things with your secret questions. For one, you can choose questions that don’t have easy to find answers such as your childhood best friend’s first name. Alternatively, you could make up an unrelated answer that functions as another password of sorts. It could even just be a string of random letters and numbers.

#4: Put Your Information To Use

The reality is that you have had a long time to get ready for the ACA’s changes to the healthcare system. If you haven’t sat down and worked out what you are going to do, you still have time. The marketplace will offer many options to choose from. Figure out how much coverage your family will need and how much you are willing to pay.

Before looking at the marketplace’s offerings, you might want to see if you qualify for options like Medicaid. Some states have chosen to accept the federal Medicaid package which will allow thousands more to be covered by the program.

By knowing what is available to you and having an idea of what you are going to choose, you can ignore all the noise from scammers trying to push a “discount health plan” as health insurance.

#5: Realize That The ACA Isn’t Set In Stone

The ACA, like most pieces of legislation, is a long document. The truth is that won’t know what those hundreds of pages really mean until we see the law in action. We can expect to see some modifications happen. When the marketplaces open on October 1^st, take note of what is being talked about in the media. Whatever surfaces as a big talking point may just be where you can expect to see some change.

It is no fault of the ACA that scammers are trying to take advantage of it. It is only you who can protect yourself.