I put this YouTube about 2023 changes to Medicare premiums, copays, etc over on the Retirement Category.
Disclosure: The presenters have a website and a FB page - Medicareschool.com
They are also brokers of some sort.
ralph is not affiliated in any way with the presenters.
The advantage plans are a rip off.
There was a declared reduction in Part B for next year.
I do some of the planning with my parents to make sure things are Kosher. They are getting endless notices to join an advantage plan. You have to wonder who is taking advantage.
As far as I can tell, the video is just information about the changes to the premiums, copays, etc for 2023.
There is no push for or against Advantage plans or Traditional Medicare.
My relatives, friends, and acquaintances who have advantage plans express satisfaction. They describe an experience very similar to the HMO/PPO plans that they’d had for a couple decades.
Ie, its a process with which they are familiar.
Their life is going on, pretty much as it did before they turned 65.
They aren’t data mining their finances and healthcare bills. They attend the “seminars” and make a choice from that. They grumble about increases, but they don’t rebel.
Traditional medicare is a different environment, and requires a learning curve. (Just like the new TMF boards - look at the angst that’s causing.)
ralph
Hey Ralph -
I agree that there seem to be two sets of “customers” of retirement healthcare options.
Those that prefer to not see bills and have everything taken care of for them and don’t mind paying the extra premiums for that - Advantage customer.
Those that would rather “self-insure” some portion of the cost of healthcare and have a supplemental plan at a lower cost - Supplemental customer.
I have a good friend that is in the Advantage plan and prefer having no bills.
I’m in the supplemental plan - cause I can self-insure (to a known degree) and I prefer to pay insurance companies the minimum amount possible.
Different strokes for different folks!
'38Packard
I can’t say that I choose traditional Medicare because I prefer to self-insure but rather that I recognise the potential for significant out-of-pocket expenses with th Advantage option
Let’s be honest, folk choose it because of cost. Zero cost at time of service and low to no premiums…along with the trimmings like free gym membership etc that are front and center on the ads that start to appear this time of year. Usually works fine for most…until it doesn’t. I don’t want to be faced with an option of choosing between compromised care and/or stratospheric out of pocket expense if I come down with something nasty that doesn’t fall within Advantage reimbursement. The stuff I know about is bad enough.
The implications for the big picture also concern me. Participation in Advantage plans seems to be getting more common at a time when more folk in the senior population are demanding more medical attention. Heck, with the obesity epidemic lumbering along at the pace it is, more and more folk are entering their 40s and 50s with expensive-to-manage conditions secondary to an obesogenic lifestyle so I don’t see the situation changing for the better. More and more sicker patients in a practice demographic…particularly primary care…and with insurance plans with a fixed fee global payment as opposed to fee for service = pressure on quality of care for everyone.
I have a friend who has an Advantage plan…fit and healthy but has noticed a difference in how what she used to call an annual physical is conducted…less frequent and more visits with a PA rather than the physician, for one complaint.
People in the advantage plans are paying a lot out of pocket. The plans say nothing out of pocket that is not true. Caveat Emptor! These are private insurers that are supposed to something along the lines of Medicare for less money. That is unworkable for the buyers.
While it’s on my mind, there’s another issue that is irking me and I’ve posted about it on this board and also the LBYM and Health Related Finances Board. I don’t know whether this post of mine clarifies this better than my original post appeared to…
I’m pretty sure this program started in response to the drain that Advantage patients with multiple co morbidities place on a practice if compensation is via a fixed fee (Advantage) vs fee for service. In a general sense, this is totally appropriate as primary care is squeezed financially by insurance company reimbursement at the best of times.
My initial question was-is agreeing to be included in this plan going to mean multiple emails and prompts that seem to be necessary for some folk. The answer, BTW is yes it does. In reality, with my recently diagnosed condition of a familial hypercholesterolemia, I actually DO qualify for the program.
Now, this next point is relevant to most everyone who utilises a third party payer. I’d had cause to query some bills a few years ago that I couldn’t fathom and got to speak with the person who coordinated this within the practice and it seems that both dh and I had been enrolled in the plan even though we didn’t actually qualify. Got that stopped BUT, in calling up the practice and speaking with the person who is now the coordinator to make sure I didn’t get an email every day, I mentioned this incident. I don’t think she quite believed me because she checked back through the progress notes and admin stuff and, lo, it seems that a couple of “diagnoses” were added to our medical histories (thus qualifying us for this Chronic Care Management) that we didn’t actually have, haven’t developed since (our real issues are bad enough, TYVM)…and we weren’t aware of.
Hopefully, I’ve explained it well enough that the repercussions of something like this (which with the best will in the world, it’s hard to dismiss as an accidental error) are apparent.
Tried to post a link to, rather than the full post. Another feature that’s disappeared?
@VeeEnn - I think the new way would be to highlight the portion (or entire) text of the post that you want to refer to and then hit the “Quote” button that appears with the text highlighted. When you do that, your post will look like this one. Hope that helps!!
'38Packard
I do not consider it appropriate after the promises made to people. I consider it predatory.
Predatory? In what way and by whom.
The other (quicker) way to quote an entire post (like I’m doing here) is to just click the first icon in the upper left corner of the reply area that I have circled below
You can then leave it at that or you can delete some of the original post.
You can also click the 5th icon (the quotes) and type any text you want or paste it in from any other source.
Mike
I thank you…
But, apparently, I need to be more effusive so…
Private insurance does not need to be in this market. People are sick and dying. Getting screwed in the process is predatory on the insurers’ parts.
I am excluding supplemental policies from that statement.
Interesting tidbit from the video.
My Medicare combination has “always” been Parts A, B and D with a high deductible Medigap type F+
My understanding from the video is that the difference between the “regular” types F and G were that type G didn’t cover the roughly $225 deductible on Medicare Part B and type F did.
Both the type F+ high deductible and the G+ high deductible have deductibles of $2,300-$2,400, both of which are high enough to cover that $225 difference. The video claims that, other than cost (and size of deductible), there should no difference between them and one should pick the cheapest (in this case, G+).
Anyone interpret this differently?
Jeff
I determined that when I was investigating the transition from an employer provided group plan to Medicare. Never entertained the idea of managed Medicare (i.e. an Advantage plan) and couldn’t see a benefit to the higher premiums of plan F.
FWIW, it’s when a person signs up for insurance like a Supplemental plan that inaccurate information in a medical record can bite. We were late bloomers where Medicare part B was concerned as husband worked full time up until last year (72 almost 73) and we had a group health plan as our primary medical insurance and Medicare (part A) as secondary. When signing up for the Supplemental as an over 70, the insurance company usually accesses medical records. From the chronic care management misinformation in dh’s records, his premiums actually doubled from the initial quote. Took a lot of fixing