Hello. I was recently laid-off from my job. My wife is has Original Medicare Parts A & B and usually it pays secondary to my employer provided health insurance. This has worked out pretty well for us, and maybe I should have looked into a Medicare supplement for her before now, but here we are. I expect to get back to work, but in the meantime I want to get some Medicare Advantage/Medigap/Part D for my wife. I’m going to be working with some help from the state, but we’ve always appreciated Clark Howard’s advice and wanted to see what opinions/advice people had here. I think the only reason we’d go with Medicare Advantage would be the possibility of dental, hearing, vision and drug coverage, although at first glance the coverage for these seem pretty paltry, and the restrictive network requirements could be an issue. Any advice is appreciated.
Medicare Advantage may not be a good choice because of:
- the in network requirements that you refer to.
- If you later want to switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional medicare, medical underwriting is required in most states(except for Maine, New York, Conneticut and Massachusetts).
I don’t know if the following is correct (I was checking A.I. for information about my state), “Switching from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare alone does not involve medical underwriting.
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Medical underwriting only comes into play if you’re also trying to buy a Medigap (Medicare Supplement) plan, which helps cover out-of-pocket costs in Original Medicare.
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Many people assume they can freely get a Medigap plan after leaving Medicare Advantage—but unless you’re in a protected enrollment period (like your first year), insurers can require underwriting and even deny coverage.”
My wife has never had any supplement to her Original Medicare Parts A & B, and we’re only looking into it now because of my unemployed status and losing my employer health insurance that covered the gap for us. I think losing our employer health insurance/losing my job is a qualifying event. I’m trying to talk to our state (Oregon) sponsored Medicare counselor so I make the best decision. It seems like Medigap F/G (most comprehensive, wife has been on Original Medicare since 2000/2001) would be best, but we’ll see.
Thanks for correcting my statement.
You’re right, Dental, Drug, Vision and Hearing coverage is crappy in most Plans from my observation anyway.
We use Costco for Vision and have been very satisfied. $100 Eye exam for Glasses and you can take the prescription anywhere , but I use Costco, $100 lenses plus Frames. I just got the cheapest frames I could from their selection.
Dental insurance is a ripoff and doesn’t cover much. I shopped Dentists , there’s a lot of them in our area , for the best deal for cleaning , etcetera , and went with them. Self insured.
Drugs, we have Drug insurance but as Clark says , most of the time Costco is easier and cheaper to use.
Skipped Hearing insurance and use Costco for that too. $1600 for Hearing Aids with replacement insurance for two years. Costco and the VA are top rated for Hearing Aids.
We have Medicare Advantage through my Company Retiree Association and have had excellent service , including several complicated Medical Events with different service providers, in and out of network. We pay $70/month each for Advantage plus the Medicare deduction from our SS. Our Supplemental before I went Advantage was $300/month each.
So, our experience with Advantage has been great! Apparently, like so many other things it really depends on who your provider is.
We both are 80.
I have Kaiser and their Advantage plan here. The vision and dental portion I can do without so may check to see how to drop those.
I had dental work that fell within the same time period and was not covered so I paid $1,000 out of pocket as I remember. I got my vision tested but ordered glassed through Zenni.
I love Kaiser because I can always be seen the same day or next for most items. If it involves being put under or need to have certain tests, I get a free flight back and forth to Honolulu on Oahu. There is nothing better than a colonoscopy that includes getting frequent flier miles! (Kaiser pays for the flights, but you pull the PNR record into your own account).
Hi. My husband and I had Aetna Medicare advantage plan but they cancelled our and all of Fairfield county policies in Connecticut. I believe Clark once said “ medicare disdadvantage plans.” So, we now have Humana supplement plan N. Plan G isn’t necessary in Connecticut because we are in a state that says illegal for providers to charge excess fees. We are happy with our decision. No networks or preauthorizations..no medical underwriting. I hope we can afford to keep the supplemental and part D plans. Budgeting.