[KittyLady]

Does anyone have medicare part C? That's the one which is part A,B and D but you have an outside medical insurance to cover the gaps that medicare wont cover! Yada Yada Yada. Just more confusion for me.

HELP!!!!!!!

[Hopeless]

Hi KiittyLady,

It can be very confusing and it takes a lot of research to find out what works best for each person's individual circumstances.

Part C is called an Advantage Plan.

Maybe this will help you a little.

If eligible for Medicare, you have basically 3 choices. (NOT exactly but I am just trying to keep it simple.)

Choice One: Traditional Medicare alone (Parts A and B) and you can add Part D (drug coverage)

Choice Two: Traditional Medicare (Parts A & B) and ADD a Supplemental plan that helps pick up some of your out of pocket expenses, like the 20% co-insurance you pay with Part B of Medicare. With THIS choice you have your traditional Medicare AND you purchase another policy through an insurance company. This is having two policies, one is Medicare and the second is from an insurance company.

Choice Three: INSTEAD of having traditional Medicare, you could have an Advantage Plan that replaces Parts A, B, and sometimes D, and it is administered by an insurance company and is referred to as an Advantage Plan or Medicare Part C . They are similar to HMO's and PPO's.


Choice TWO gives you the most coverage but it is also the most expensive.

Does this help any?

For MY situation, after much research, I went with an advantage plan. It gave me the most coverage without having to pay the higher premium for a supplemental plan.

Please feel free to ask if you still have questions. It can be very overwhelming and confusing. NO one can tell you what YOU should do but we are here to help you understand the choices you have available. Everyone's situation is different and what works best for one person may not be the best choice for another person.

[TheSleeper]

http://www.medicare.gov/sign-up-chan...lans-work.html

[doydie]

Both me and my husband have advantage plans. When I first started mine it was $14/month and I really liked the co-pays and of course it had the free wellness screening such as mammogram, etc. Through the years it has steadily increased where it is now about $60, co-pays are still decent but now the wellness exams are all $50 Hubbies premium is $0. Yep, ou read it right $0/month. He also has decent co-pays but he has more restrictions on what doctor to see. For example, our own family doctor does to much in his office such as trim toenails, remove small lesions. AARP United healthcare doesn't like that and dropped him as a provider. Oh, he also sees his own nursing home and hospital patients and they say all that is a waste of his resources. So he continues to stay with our doctor and pays the non provider fee. It all works out in the end since he likes the monthly premium. I keep on saying i will change and I never do.

[KittyLady]

Thank you Hopeless for your info, and thank you sleeper for the link, I know I had seen that before as soon as I clicked on it, but it was a great refresher. I am qualified for social security to pay half of my what do you call it co-pay or deductible or both, plus I no longer have to pay for my part B (?) for medicare, I qualified for not having to pay for that. I didn't qualify for state aid, so I was told by medicare I have the kind of medicare that I can change at anytime, and part C might be a good choice for me seeing as Im having such a hard time paying for that 20% that medicare doesn't cover. So they had me talk to a Blue Medicare Access Value Regional PPO guy who referred me to a Anthem BC/BS guy who said he'd send me out the info I'd need to make my decision if I wanted to sign up with them or not. I tell you one thing, my head is spinning with all this medicare stuff worse then that chick on the exorcist!! However, I did learn that I don't have to pay for things if I didn't know that medicare doesn't cover them. That was an interesting little tid-bit! Too bad it was only ONE test I had done that they don't cover

[doydie]

Good luck Kitty. My Mom and I both signed up for that Blue Medicare access value. The price was wonderful and that's what Mom loved about it. She soon found out though that it wasn't the right plan for her. My medical needs were mainly medicines and an occasional doctor visit and maybe tests. Her needs were a lot less medicines and many lab and xrays and doctors visits. Her bills were awful for her very limited income. So she changed to I think Medicare F, yes another plan to make your head spin. It was a lot more expensive for the monthly premium but it covered so much more for her and of course we didn't know at the time that she would need nursing home care but it covered extra days there that Medicare wouldn't have. That was such a huge blessing. So you have to have a good agent to help you look at what your individual needs are.