Everything You Need to Know about Medicare Advantage Plans (Medicare Part C)

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• A brief refresher on Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B and the associated gaps in coverage
• The various types of Medicare Advantage plans, including HMOs, PPOs, and SNPs, and the differences between each of them
• Why it’s important to consider in-network coverage when shopping for Medicare Advantage plans
• The coverage benefits of Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans (MAPDs)
• Three big things that Medicare doesn’t cover
• What Medicare Advantage covers that Medicare plans do not
• Why Medicare Advantage may be more convenient than other Medicare coverage options
• When the Annual Enrollment Period is
• Factors to consider when shopping for an MAPD
• Why you should review your options every Annual Enrollment Period no matter what
• And more!

Quotes

“There are two options, really, when it comes out there to filling in gaps in your Medicare: Medicare Supplements andMedicare Advantage Plans.” — Zach

“The HMO plans are primary care physician-based. Their networks are typically county-based or sometimes multi-county based, but they're for individuals that don't do a lot of traveling. They do have set copays on a lot of services, and they typically are relatively inexpensive.” — Nick

“And then the PPOs: there is no requirement for a referral on a PPO. They typically are going to have larger networks, regional, or in some cases, national networks.” — Nick

“The only thing that a Medicare Advantage Plan has to do is offer benefits equivalent to original Parts A and B of Medicare.” — Nick

“It's important to note that Medicare Advantage Plans wrap up and replace Part A and B, but also incorporate Part D of Medicare in the same type of plan. So, unlike Medicare, and a supplement and a stand-alone drug plan, it's all in one card.” — Nick

“Medicare Advantage Plans give you additional benefits that original Medicare does not cover. It basically Medicare Advantage Plan will pick up, like, deductibles, and coinsurance, things of that nature traditional Medicare does not cover.” — Tausha

“Medicare Advantage over traditional Medicare has a stopgap in place that caps the amount of spending that you would do each year, which is called a max out of pocket.” — Tausha

Links

• Aetna: https://www.aetna.com/
• Seniors Living Healthy: seniors-livinghealthy.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/seniorbenefitinc
• Contact Zach:
  • [email protected]
  • 1-844-437-4253

Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to our fireside chat with Seniors Living Healthy, the podcast that helps prepare and educate you as you enter and live out your golden years. With over 10 years of experience, Nick and Zach are experts in the senior market and are here to help you live a healthy, full life. And now fireside with your hosts, Nick Keene, and Zach Haire.

Zach: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Seniors Living Healthy. As always, I'm your host, Zach, and beside me is Nick.

Nick: Hello, folks.

Zach: You guys, this episode we're going to look into the different options to fill in those gaps that Medicare covers where we've talked about in the previous episodes, with Part A being your hospitalization, and Part B being your outpatient. There are two different options out there. One of them is Medicare Supplements, which we're going to touch on next episode, where this episode we're going to focus on Medicare Advantage. You may see him also called MAPD or Part C of Medicare. Especially with Annual Enrollment Period coming up, you're going to see a lot of TV advertisements, radio advertisements, billboards, things in your mail, all of that stuff, in regards to that.

So, guys, as always, usually do a product review in our episodes, but since this whole episode is on a product, we're just going to jump right into it and just cover the whole product as a whole. And then, as always, we'll go into our interview, our confession section, and then wrap up the episode. So, now that we've talked about A and B has all these gaps, this episode—and we're going to spill over into next episode—we're going to talk about what covers those gaps that Medicare doesn’t. Some different options, everything out there for you. So, Nick, give me a quick rundown just to refresh everybody, what some of those gaps are?

Nick: Sure, absolutely, Zach. So, the main two parts of Medicare Part A and Part B. As you alluded to, Part A is the hospitalization, Part B is the outpatient. So, some of the major gaps under Part A of Medicare are, Medicare Part A has a $1408 deductible per 60-...