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Medicare Disadvantage: Don't let your parents or grandparents sign up for Medicare Advantage without knowing the facts first!

Medicare Disadvantage: Dont let your parents or grandparents sign up for Medicare Advantage without knowing the facts first!

It's that time of year again. About all you see on TV and in mailboxes are advertisements about Medicare advantage plans. These advertisements with washed-up celebrities and athletes tend to brag about how having a plan like this gives seniors more benefits like Grocery allotment, transport services to and from appointments, dental coverage, and vision coverage which traditional Medicare does not pay for.

It sounds great right? Well, on paper it does. However, when the help is really needed your grandparents or parents will find out quickly that it’s not as helpful as they were promised by Joe Namath or Jimmie “JJ” Walker from “Good Times”. It’s all a big scam.

To begin with, Medicare is accepted Nationwide by most doctors and hospitals. You can go to any doctor nationwide and only pay 20 percent of the cost out of pocket. With a MA plan, it is controlled by private insurance companies such as Humana, Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente, and the biggest one United Healthcare. This is where Traditional Medicare is usually taken out. You can only go to a doctor or hospital in the network. And to add injury to insult, that network is usually limited to specific places in your state or county. If you go outside a certain area, you are left to foot the bill. Traditional Medicare would still cover 80 percent if you didn’t have the advantage plan.

If you have any major tests, surgery, or be put in a special place like a rehabilitation facility, nursing home, or hospice then you might be waiting for approval for a long time. With Traditional Medicare this is not an issue. The advantage plans require a lot of paperwork and technicalities, and a lot of procedures and needs do end up being denied.

A lot of people who have had Medicare advantage plans in the past have said “They work great until you get sick”. My housemate keeps getting bombarded every day with mailers about Medicare Advantage benefits and constantly being fed advertisements about Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment while watching her programs. I feel bad for her because she did fill out a card for information, but this was before I checked in on it. I do want to sit down with her and explain why Traditional Medicare is better the way it is. My grandparents had Medicare Advantage for a short time, but quickly dropped it whenever they found out it wasn’t going to work for them.

Please check in on your parents and grandparents this time of year and make sure they are aware of their Medicare or insurance. Don’t let them get suckered into advertisements that claim they can get them more out of their Medicare if they sign up for an advantage plan. Because what you don’t know today, may bite them in the ass tomorrow.

#Keepmedicare #Realtalk

Medicare Disadvantage: Don't let your parents or grandparents sign up for Medicare Advantage without knowing the facts first!
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