OT. Medicare ?

Consider a Medicare Advantage HMO plan- as long as a good HMO is available in your area.

Most have Rx coverage, no "supplement" plan is needed, emphasize preventative care, and usually it's one-stop shopping when you need to see the doc...lab, xray, pharmacy, etc., in the building.

Kaiser Permanente has been the top-rated HMO for many years where I live and I've generally been happy with the quality of care I've received. I was also with them for a long time before I went on Medicare.

But lately they've been hiring a ton of fresh-out physicians from foreign medical schools in regions I'd hardly consider centers of medical excellence. We'll have to see how it goes.

You can start by understanding that anything you hear from friends, etc may not apply to you. MC is not by any means a "one size fits all" deal.

First d/l and read thru a copy of "Medicare and You" at

Then when you have questions, go to this Health Insurance forum

Several very knowledgeable people hang out there and are good at answering.

If all that fails, every State has a free group called SHIPS that are there to help people understand Medicare. Go here to find yours:

Good Luck, just take your time to understand what choices are best for you.

Unfortunately Kaiser's Part C Advantage plans are only available in 8 States & DC (and not all counties in those States). So Dean will need to be in their Service Area to consider them.

Wife and I checked the SHIPS at a local senor citizen center. Man was very helpful and gave us some options. We went with AETNA . That seemed to be the best for us at the time. If you are on any expensive (before insurance) medications make sure they are on the formulary (list of drugs they cover).

Disadvantage is that it only pays for doctors within the plan so I guess it does depend where you are located and who the doctors are.

Some retirees have no supplemental but my former employer pays for most of it. I have never met the over $2,000 deductible for the over 10 years I have been on the supplemental and the only benefit I get is free fitness club membership.

You should get a supplemental drug plan. Generics are usually cheap enough not to need one but name brands can be out of sight. Years ago I took one for a year that would have cost me $36,500 but only cost me a $80 copay.

Choose your gap plan wisely. This may be the last chance you have for Plan F (the platinum one) if you are sick. After the initial offering you have to go through underwriting and if you are too sick they just say no. Other than that it is "do you feel lucky"? You can get an advantage plan in most states with zero monthly payments, minimal co pays that includes the Plan D (Drug) coverage. That is probably not for you if you go to the doctor a lot tho. It is the classic pay me now (~$300/mo for plan F and a drug plan) or pay me later (~$6500 max out of pocket every year)

You can also get zero pay Advantage PPOs that give you a lot more latitude in which doctors you can see. The two medical conglomerates that dominate the Naples Ft Myers area take United Health Care so I can go just about anywhere and see anyone without seeing my primary care guy first and getting a referral. HMOs are not that patient friendly.

I went with AARP Medicare Complete. They had me enroll in Medicare Part B and D. There is _no_ other premium for supplemental coverage.

I've had it for a few years, everything covered 100% and same doctors.

The plan does have dental but my dentist won't do any form of Medicare.

I take 2 medications, both sent through the mail for free. On my old employer plan, I paid for them.

So, working well for me.

Medicare itself is easy and can be done on line. Just Medicare leaves you open to a lot of costs for the other 20% not covered.

You have choices for supplements. Plan F is best but may be discontinued but Plan G is next best. You will pay about $200 to $225 a month for it but coverage is excellent. No co-pays and any doctor you want. Choice depends on your health and tolerance to deductibles.

I see others are touting Medicare Advantage plans. Be careful. There are a lot of deductibles and co-pays. A co-worker was bragging how much money they save with it. Husband got sick and needed a $400/month medication not covered. Its a crap shoot.

OTOH, one of my wife's hospital stays was over $200K and my cost was $0 with a United Healthcare plan F supplement.

Like I said, do you feel lucky?

My former employer pays for a supplemental dental plan. My dentist would only accept about 70% for checkups and charge me the rest so I just switched to a dentist that accepts the plan. It is a poor plan in that I may pay nothing for biannual checkups but it paid nothing for a broken partial replacement.

And if he is eligble, what happens when he travels to other parts of the country? I have no idea if that is a problem. I think I got letters from them and that was part of the reason it took me 2 extra months to decide.

I haven't seen many dental plans that let you do anything more than break even. Start talking crowns and root canals and you'd better bring your checkbook.

Yeah, iirc, you're eligble from the first day of the month in which you turn 65, not your birthday.

I couldn't make up my mind about supplemental, because there are so many choices, and I ended up with no insurance for that month, and maybe the next month, and finally choose AARP / UHC, not because they were the best but because they were big enough and famous enough that is something big were wrong with them, I'd have heard of it.

Now afaik, the only thing wrong might be how much I pay. Maybe I could pay less and get less and not miss what I don't get. For example, I rarely get the mammogram and I've never had a caesarian, if you don't count the one the day I was born.

UHC also has some health line that will answer questions 24 hours a day, and there have probably been times I should have asked them questions. At least once so I could judge how well they answer. For example, are they like the Whirlpool Cool Line, which answered excellently every question about my washing machine, even how to take out the main bearings. Or will they say, See your doctor.

UHC pays with no trouble. In fact I don't have to do anything, except give the account number to the doctor. I don't need a referral to see a specialist. Either I haven't come acrosss a single doctor who is not in network or there is no network. I think there is no network for the supplemental plan but in theory a doctor might not take medicare, yet every doctor I've even considered does take it. Including the urologist at Chesapeake Urology, which has literally 200 urologists in the Baltmiore area, and staffs the urology depts. at most of the hospitals near me. All but JHH. the urologist at Johns Hopkins, when I got tired of Chesapeake. I think I'm done now for the rest of my life. the endocrine surgeon at Univ. of Md Med Center. It really only took him 15 minutes to cut out one lobe of my parathyroid, but he cut out the right one so I'm happy. the endocrinologist who said I needed the surgeon. an orthopedist in a separate large orthopedics practice. a diferent one there when I thought I might have broken my hand. a different one who gave me a shot for trigger finger. I think other than this I've just had one checkup a year for the last 7 years.

If dental was offered, I didn't want it. My dental expenses have been low.

UHC has lots of plans and this is the UHC/AARP Medicare supplemental plan. I'm sure I could specify it with fewer words, but once or twice it hasn't been in the list I've been looking at because I used UHC when I shoudl have used AARP, or maybe vice versa.

I guess I bought the drug plan, and maybe since I don't take many drugs I didn't need it. I forget how I decided. One time I made the mistake of telling the orthopedist that Tylenol didn't work and he gave me a pescription that I didnt' ask the price of and once filled, it cost $100. I'm sure I could have refused, but I didnt', I've only taken 1 or

Membership in AARP is cheap, and I'm not sure I have to renew it to keep the insurance. maybe, and AARP annoys me because it says it "represents" so many millions of people. It doesn't ask my opinion on issues and it doesn't represent me. People join not to put forth ideas in Congress but for the insruance and other things. But I know they are counting me. And maybe most of the time what they say I want and what I actually want are the same. I don't keep track.

I'm paying $241/month for UHC. I was 72 in January. In march of 2013 wWhen I was 66, it was $157, same plan.

That includes the drugs. I'm 99% sure it's not an HMO or a PPO. I would have gotten a list of doctors in the network if it were, right?

Also plan F.

I was supposed to only be an outpatient for the last urology thing but he kept me 3 nights and it was $5 or 10,000 and I think I only paid for the TV.

In your honor I logged in for the first time in years, but it didnt' say about hmo/ppo.

I don't know if this relates directly to your question, but one of my best friends got a concierge doctor, who was supposed to give him better than average attention, and when he had trouble, the guy tolld him to keep seeing the physical therapist. My friend died at age 78 from sepsis without ever seeing his doctor, though he did spend his last 3 days in the hospital, mostly unconscious. I wanted to go yell at or send a nasty letter to the doctor, even went to his office to get his phone number etc. but his brother and his wife didn't seem to want me to. So concierge is only good if it's good.

Here is what the "Medicare and You" handbook says at the 6th bullet down on page 59 at

That's right. I had two plans available and took the one that cost half as much as it appeared both maxed at $1,000. My original dentist would have accepted full payment from the more expensive plan but he was young and I only had him for a couple of years after my older dentist retired.

AARP is an insurance salesman but does not sell their own insurance. I object to this as they should have seniors best interests at heart but their executives are compensated by the insurance company which has the insurance company's best interest at heart.

Our family doctor went concierge a few years ago but we quit him. Up front cost would have been $1,600 which is not covered by insurance. My wife, in great health, said that $1,600 was too much when all you need is an annual flu shot. I personally liked the guy but our new doctor turned out better.

I have had some kind of dental plan from IBM since the 70s and it never really paid squat. The dentist says I get a discount from the full rate but when I pressed them about whether I could negotiate the same price as a cash customer he stuffs that spit sucker back in my mouth.

I am getting the same AARP plan straight from UHC without AARP being involved at all. The monthly is zero and the co pays are the same. My doctors say I am on AARP as far as they are concerned.

Mine too. ( went Concierge) That guy pretty much just looked on his computer and quoted WebMD to me almost word for word tho. I doubt he even recognized my name. I was whomever the tech had up on the PC when he breezed in. These days my PCP is really just a tech. They say there is a doctor there somewhere but it is "Weekend at Bernies". I have been there over a half dozen times in 3 years and never even saw him. All of the real medicine is done by specialists anyway. That is all I ever had a PCP do was send me to a specialist for the last 35 years no matter what I was there for unless it was just a prescription he could write.