You have two different choices for a Medicare supplemental health insurance plan, and you only need to select one.
One is called a Medicare Advantage plan. This is the plan you often see advertised with the selling point “little or no monthly cost to you.” The Advantage plans are like HMO plans: usually you must visit doctors and hospitals that accept the plan.
If you enroll in an Advantage plan and then decide you don’t like it and want to get off of it, you can’t just drop the plan when you feel like it. You are stuck on that Advantage plan until the next annual “open enrollment period,” which lasts 45 days each year, beginning November 15 and ending December 31. During these 45 days, you may shop around for a different Advantage plan. After January 1, you are locked into your plan, stuck. The only way you can get off the plan is to dis-enroll from the plan and go back to Medicare.
That brings us to choice number two, and this is the choice we prefer. This is the original Medicare Supplement Plan, or Medigap option. The monthly premium cost to you is a little higher than what you might pay for an Advantage plan – the typical Medicare Medigap Supplement from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona is around $150 per month – but you are in total control when you have a Medigap Medicare Supplement plan. You can visit any doctor or hospital you want to, as long as the provider accepts Medicare.
You’re never “stuck” with a Medigap Supplement plan – if you have a Medigap plan from Blue Cross and decide you don’t want it any longer, you can drop the plan and go with another Medicare Supplement provider whenever you want.
The US Government provides a very good Medicare resource located here.
If you would like to compare the different Medicare options available to you here in Arizona, give Lehrman Group a call at (800) 600-9663, or visit our Medicare rate request page.
