Got Medicare Advantage? Prepare for New Perks ...

[left-of-center2012]

Got Medicare Advantage? Prepare for New Perks — and New Questions.

When Medicare’s open enrollment period begins on Oct. 15, the private insurers that underwrite Advantage plans ... will be free to add a long list of new benefits.

Among those the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will now allow, if they’re deemed health-related: Adult day care programs. Home aides to help with activities of daily living, like bathing and dressing. Palliative care at home for the terminally ill. Home safety devices and modifications like grab bars and wheelchair ramps. Transportation to medical appointments.

The proportion of Medicare beneficiaries who opt for these Medicare Advantage plans has climbed steadily to 33 percent last year from about 16 percent in 2006. In 10 years, the Kaiser Family Foundation calculates, that figure (of Medicare beneficiaries opting for a Medicare Advantage program) will reach 42 percent. “The Medicare Advantage program is very successful,” Seema Verma, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator said. “We see consistently high marks for satisfaction.”

“Failure to invest in simple things like safe housing and transportation means you will invest in hospitalization and emergency room visits” at far higher costs, she added.

full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/health/medicare-advantage-benefits.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FElderly

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Thanks for posting this very helpful bit of news and links!!! Nt

[left-of-center2012]

2. You're welcome

I just turned 72, and use a Medicare Advantage plan.

[Tess49]

3. I use one, too. Glad to have it. n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Thank you.

I likewise have Medicare Advantage, and periodically get criticized for that choice by people who claim that in the long wrong it won't serve me well. I am very healthy, lucky me, but the services that will be added to Medicare Advantage plans are amazing, and exactly the sort of thing that can keep an older person safely in her home for additional years.

(I've been known to joke that I have the Republican Health Care Plan. I don't get sick.)

[SWBTATTReg]

5. I have a medicare advantage plan, and I didn't realize that these ...

types of plans provide these features, so I am going to do some digging around and see what mine offers...this is why I'm so grateful for extra tidbits of information ... every little bit of information helps!

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

6. Remember there are restrictions as well as perks.

Following a recent hospitalization, I am getting skilled nursing visits every other day and physical therapy, as well. Provided by Traditional Medicare, no cost to me. This is for 100 days and can be renewed if needed, still no cost.

It is my understanding that this would not have been available to me under a Medicare Advantage plan. Or I would have had to pay for it myself.

Look at what you don't get, as well as what you do.

[left-of-center2012]

7. Provided by Traditional Medicare

Traditional Medicare pays 80%.
Who pays your other 20% ?

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

8. I also have secondary insurance, as do most on Medicare. nt