I was prescribed something with a $200 copay because it’s my first drug of the year and apparently there’s now a $480 Medicare part D deductible (maximum allowable, which of course is what our plan has–it’s the Medicare supplemental policy for retired state of SC employees).
Have I been too inattentive/lax in financial mgt to notice this at the first prescriptions of the year for the hubster & me for years?
=alstro, has covid so probably not firing on all thrusters anyhow
I heartily agree!
BTW, what I’ve run into is if there’s a $200 deductible and your first Part D drug purchase is $250, you end up paying all $250.
Unlike Medicare supplemental which are standardized, Part D plans vary widely. Shop around.
Medicare advantage plans avoid this problem. I have AARP United Healthcare HMO. So far all doctors and hospitals are in plan. No extra premium. No deductibles. Minor increase in specialist visits. I’m saving $2k per year compared to supplemental plus pt d plan.
We have the SC state employees retiree supplemental, which includes Part D.
I’m askeered of Medicare Advantage.
I can read your posts without being logged in.
Imagine that???
Log out and search for
fool living below your means
I’ve also posted this to improve the fool and help with this computer.
They’ve screwed up.
I can read your posts without being logged in.
Imagine that???
Log out and search for
fool living below your means
I’ve also posted this to improve the fool and help with this computer.
They’ve screwed up.
You have been told on multiple boards that these boards have always been searchable without being logged in. The TMF search has been useless for years. I have used Google to find old posts. You are just now learning about this. Don’t over react.
PSU
I thought they were talking about TMF search.
Thanks very much but I already have over reacted.
Deleting account.
I miss the old days I guess, when I paid.
take care, sorry for all the posts
nag
I’m askeered of Medicare Advantage.
I was too, but after 30 years of saving $2K/yr, I’d say the first $60K of extra charges are a wash.
I’m askeard of Medicare Advantage
Not without some cause.
It’s probably a reasonable risk to take if you’re healthy in a community of other healthy folk (including the seniors) with few of the chronic diseases that are placing an ever greater burden on resources and you see little likelihood of change. However, that last caveat is where the issues might arise.
I would’ve placed dh and myself in that category based on our exceptional rude good health…until just over 3 years ago when his previously undetected congenital heart defect almost made a widow out of me. Quite apart from the out of pocket expense that would’ve probably wiped out multiple decades of savings let alone just the few years prior to this that he was eligible for Medicare, there’s a strong possibility that we would’ve been fighting with whichever insurance company was managing the decisions governing his medical care just to get procedures approved.
I was too, but after 30 years of saving 2k/years, I’d say the first $60k of extra charges are a wash
This is a confusing statement. Are you saying that with 30 years as a beneficiary of Medicare Advantage plan, you’ve saved/could’ve saved $60k with no compromise in care…or you expect the same moving forward. 30 years is a long time to get sick yourself or to have the reality of other people getting sick and placing demands on the insurance company/industry that have an impact on your future plan costs and coverage.
More seniors are joining Advantage plans every year. That means a greater number of sicker folk requiring more treatment. Seniors aren’t getting healthier as a demographic and as the nation gets increasingly fatter at a younger age than in the past, chronic diseases associated with this are going to become more prevalent too. A financial burden that is likely to disrupt Advantage plans more than traditional Medicare I reckon.
I know I’m a data point of one,or maybe two if we include DH, but I’ve never quite understood the dislike of Advantage plans.
The coverage I have and he had before the brain tumor is almost identical to the health insurance coverage we had through our employers and the premium is less than I was paying out of pocket before medicare. The premium for the Advantage plan has only changed a few dollars in the 15 years I’ve been on the plan, sometimes increased and sometimes decreased.
I’ve never had to fight the insurance company about any issues and the out of pocket costs for DH from date of diagnosis to date of death were not unreasonable.
For me,the advantage of the Advantage plan is that I don’t have to keep track of who is covering what bills. I expect this to be more important as I age.
Again, I’m a data point of one so YMMV.
I have regular Medicare with an AARP/United gap plan - I still plan to travel a lot. I have no drug plan. I take one medication that costs me $40/year. Anything I have needed in the last couple of years was cheap with Good RX.
The cheapest drug plan were ridiculous, IMHO. I’m single and I can either cover or defer until insured on whatever.
The risk with Medicare advantage is that the care you need is not covered. So you must find another way to pay for it.
In my case all my doctors and the best hospitals are in plan. So far everything is covered.
I expect to be in the plan for 30 years. At $2k/yr that gives me $60k toward those uncovered expenses.
I expect to be in the plan for 30 years. At 2k/yr that gives me $60k toward those uncovered expenses
How old are you now, if you don’t mind me asking? Assuming you’ve just turned 65, that means living to the age of 95 with minimal/hopefully no medical intervention of a serious nature. Is that likely?
I don’t have that degree of confidence in my own longevity
In my case all my doctors and the best hospitals are in plan. So far everything is covered.
I like being able to go to whatever doctor I choose with very little cost to me - the small deductible - and without a referral required. It’s good your doctors are in the plan. In my large metropolitan area, doctors move around like the balls in a pinball machine.
I have been through the situation where the health insurance company my employer used for retirees was not very large where I moved. Their list of providers had not been updated. Yes, you can imagine the problems of finding in network care while travelling etc. Especially emergency care.
In this area Blue Cross Anthem is the traditional health insurer. Every service or doctor knows how to deal with them. And my supplemental was with them originally.
But when I looked into United Health Care plans, I was surprised to find how widely their services are used. Yes, small regional insurers can be a problem, but so far United Health Care has been excellent.
How old are you now, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m just turning 76 next month. But my family does have good genes. Most of us make it into mid 90s and that numbers seems to keep increasing. 106 is not out of the question. My life plan actually does say 95.
Of course longevity means taking care of yourself. Most of us do manage it.
In my large metropolitan area, doctors move around like the balls in a pinball machine
I don’t think it’s confined to just large metropolitan areas…or won’t be for long. It’s more a sign of the times and a change in medical culture. That would be part of my reluctance to hitch my wagon to a managed care set up that uses a capitation model of reimbursement…and be confident that the status quo of minimal up front costs and same standards of care would continue moving forward.
When my husband was in hospital just over 3 years ago (on the consumer side of the counter) it was my first experience of a significant use of “travel nurses”. Seemed to me that close to half of the cardio-thoracic ICU was staffed this way. Youngish and all perfectly competent… but temporary. They worked for companies that supplied medical manpower to institutions at vast expense and the attraction for these kids was that they could pick and choose their locations, and their hours, and pretty much their terms of contract. Nice for them.
For the few weeks husband was off work, his locum coverage was via exactly the same set up. A youngish doc, just out of his fellowship programme, who wanted to work 2 weeks on and two weeks off …with a per diem compensation approx 2x husband’s (and other attendings)…and still does!!!
This apparently isn’t confined to nice areas like Denver with its access to the Rockies etc. so it’s not something to dismiss lightly when making future plans based upon how things are right now.
I’m 62 and also finding that the long-term doc-patient relationship is largely a thing of the past. They come and go. The good news is that medicine has become more of a science and less of an art. Most good docs can read the test and imaging results of the prior doc and know what to do. The bad news is that there is still a large “art” part of medicine that gets better and better as the doc better knows the patient.