Effective Immediately

Fox’s contract with Medicare has been terminated by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). After a review of the plan it was determined it did not meet Medicare’s requirements.  All enrollees in a Fox plan will obtain their drugs through a plan administered by Humana.

Clients will have a SEP until May 1 during which they can make 1 election. If they do not make an election by May 1 they will remain in the Humana plan.

Call us with questions or assistance picking a new plan. 

Toll free 1-888-535-0999 or local 816-254-6100

Click here for the full CMS press release.

Medicare beneficiaries should remember:

• Medicare cannot call and ask for financial or personal information over the phone.
• Medicare numbers should be kept in a safe, secure place.
• Medicare will not notify beneficiaries of payments by phone. The beneficiary must be notified of the past due premiums via mail.

It has come to my attention that there are some Medicare beneficiaries around the country are receiving calls from scammers saying they are from Medicare for one reason or another.  Some are saying they have to pay a Pard D penalty and other things like that, while they have you on the phone.  Please remember anyone from Medicare will not ask you for financial or personal information over the phone.

If you question a phone call, hang up and call your local social security office or medicare directly at 1-800-Medicare (1-800-633-4227)

The 2010 Medicare supplement Modernization Act will certainly update current Medicare Medigap insurance plans countrywide. Nevertheless, it can not affect any existing Medicare Supplemental coverage which you have.

This exclusively has an effect on individuals that buy a brand new plan with an effective date of coverage on or after June 1, 2010. In case you already possess a Medicare Supplement insurance policy, your own health benefits are not going to change and also you are guaranteed to keep your policy given that you continue paying your payment. You will end up grandfathered in to the old plan benefits, nevertheless could possibly have a chance to go on to a new program if it performs better for you.

In case you are turning 65 on or after June 1, 2010 or considering a Medicare Medigap switch on or perhaps after that date, you’ll want to pay special attention to the brand new insurance plans and the way they’ll have an impact on you. The key modifications are going to be:

The Preventive Care and At Home Recovery features will be removed completely from all policies which bundled them prior to June 1st, 2010. Medicare has made the decision that these kind of benefits, that weren’t used very often will not be worthy of inclusion in the standard Medicare Medigap insurance plans moving forward, consequently they’ve been peeled off all policies which had them.

Together with the removal of those two benefits many of the plans are going to mirror several other policies exactly, therefore in order to reduce multiple policies with the very same coverage, plans E, H, I along with J will not be available to buy.

Yet again, make sure you try to remember for those who have a plan which won’t be available immediately after June 1st, 2010 you’re grandfathered in and get to maintain your current plan, your features cannot change.

For the brand new policies being launched immediately after June 1st, 2010, there will be a new Hospice feature added as a standard benefit within all the plans. This will now be regarded as a core feature and will be an integral part of all of the brand new plans.

The biggest revision is actually the addition of two new plans, Plan M and also Plan N. Those two plans promise to be a very practical choice for all those currently on a Medicare Advantage plan which are either losing their insurance or facing the significant rates increases / benefit decreases which are predicted in these the years to come.

Each plans will certainly use a different cost-sharing to allow for lower prices. Plan M will make the covered responsible for Half of the Part A deductible, while Plan N will have a $20 doctor’s office co-pay and a $50 emergency room co-pay. Both plans estimate to have 15-30% lower monthly premiums as compared to existing Medicare Supplement Plan F.

At the time of the witting of this article, there has not been virtually any details released with who will likely be selling these brand new plans or the exact costs. I highly recommend you subscribe to our site at www.medicaresupplementdirect.com with regard to up-to-date info as it is published.

What does all that mean?

The proposal includes

• opening up Medicare to those uninsured between the ages 55 to 64 effective 2011
• No public option, unless the insurance companies don’t respond
• Requires insurance companies to spend 90% of the premium dollars on medical expenses wich does not include administrative costs.

article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

For those of you on a Medicare Advantage plan, if you have not taken a look at the benefits that are being offered for next year, we recommend that you take a look and compare them to what your benefits were last year.  What we have noticed for a lot of the plans is that they are keeping the monthly premium and Doctor office co-pays pretty close to what they were last year, its the hospital copay and out of pocket maximum is where the biggest change is.

A lot of the plans now follow the per day copay for each visit to the hospital which could be somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 on up to $250 per day for the first 7 days or more.  This per day charge can add up pretty fast considering the average stay is somewhere between 5 and 7 days.

The other major change so a lot of the Medicare Advantage plans is that your exposure our out of pocket maximum has jumped.  Depending on the plan you could be responsible for $5000, $8500 or more if you are getting benefits out of the network.

Yes these plans work great for some people, however the most important factor is that you know what your responsible for with any plan you choose.