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My first Medicare experience
montanajoe
Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 59,943 ******
Got a medicare advantage policy. Supplementals are too expensive.
I have a RX for ear drops, hydrocortisone/ acetic acid to help curve itching and heal inflammation there from of my ears. Currently under insurance it's a $10 co-pay per tiny bottle. Comes Dec. 1st. with my medicare it will be $150 per tiny bottle. Not going to happen. They're not getting my money for a supplement plan that still has a high deductible and high co-pay. They also are not getting $150 for a bottle. I will do without. Maybe next year advantage plans will improve.
Comments
My mother's prescription plan was going up to to $36 a month & her pharmacy was giving her better pricing thru Good RX.
With a little research on the Medicare site, I found a $6 a month plan and moved her to another pharmacy. All her med prices dropped to $24 total + the $6 per month or less than the old plan alone.
I am fortunate and any pills I take are generic and I go though CenterWell mail order and it's cheap. As for Medicare, I get quarterly (I think) summaries. I look at doctor and hospital charges, medicare payments, and AARP/United Healthcare payments and it's a joke about the Medicare amount.
I guess what burns my cookies LOL
the government can not throw money fast enough at illegals and drug users and the 3rd and 4th generation of being on a free ride called welfare. not to mention billions of Aid to all the country's we need to keep our nose out of any way
yet countless vets and use to be working class now retired or disabled a lot homeless are hanging on by a shoestring and what do we hear just crickets from the government on helping
some plans have to meet deductable,, i have yet to meet this point all year
Doing 23 years military was the best thing I ever did. With Medicare and Tricare, my wife and I have not had a medical bill in over 15 years.
Look into GoodRX for meds. I don't know how that works, but it's free to use and the discounts are amazing. We quite often use Walgreen's for prescriptos just because it's close by. My wife just got one for a heavy pain reliever and with GRx it cost her $1.73.
Takes time for meds to move from China, India, & other overseas places to get here.
I’ve got Medicare A and pay for the Medicare B so I’m covered for doctors. Now the supplement I have pays everything Medicare doesn’t after I meet the $225 deductible for the year. What I don’t care for about advantage policy’s , is they want you to use the hospitals and doctors that are in there network, or they don’t pay.
And I agree that illegals have no right to receive Medicare coverage. By the way that’s 7,000,000 illegals now that have joined the program and never payed a dime into it. Health care coverage has become a racket. Office visits $200, Tylenol $20 a pop, a simple blood test $1000. All thanks to Obama care.
Judys' 37 years at USPS has paid off not only with her pension but being able to keep her Blue Cross. It is a bit pricey as a Medicare supplement but has paid for itself many times over. I just got off the phone with the pharmacy, ordering the next 4 weeks of Humira. A one-week dose averages a little over $3000. My cost with Medicare and Blue Cross is $5 for a 4 week supply delivered. Strangely, if one of us needs a regular ordinary prescription like an antibiotic, the co-pay is $10. If your only prescription expense is for those drops, then you would have to weigh the monthly cost + deductible against your prescription savings. The only other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of us are only one major medical incident away from bankruptcy. Judy and I worked our entire lives saving for retirement and pay for the supplement so that doesn't happen to us. Bob
Numerous times VA has turned me down for any care or for hearing aids based on combined household income is over 56,000.
I had a VA card when I first got out, only used it a couple times. Several years passed and I went to use the VA and was told my card was expired and I now don't have VA coverage. They took my card and sent me out the door.
Tried re-applying numerous times since then with same results. Benefits not available for you, you don't qualify. My active duty time was '77-'79 and falls under Viet Nam era of benefits. The rest of my time served was NG and AR.
I don't understand that. I didn't apply to the VA until almost 15 years after I retired, and our combined income is way the hell above $56,000. But they took me without a quibble. I get annual physicals and hearing aids. Maybe it's because I did do a full career - dunno.
I wasn't able to get VA either because of my income was above the threshold also Joe, but finally when I retired it dropped to under the requirement. I served 76-80 timeframe also. Rocky you served during a wartime period (declared or not) and I believe retired from the service, both of those things come in to play when trying to get VA benefits of any kind... As mentioned Joe you can try and get yourself an advocate from many different Veteran service organizations and that may help, but you have to sometimes fight a lot to get what you want. I went over 30 years with no VA help and the last 10 or so without any medical insurance at all until my income dropped enough about 2 years ago and I'm still finding out that the squeaky wheel gets the grease...hang in there and don't give up!
Joe, ask your primary doctor if there is a schedule 340 discount available from the manufacturer. i recently was getting a diabetis drug, costs 150/month. even with insurance. my PCP was able to steer me into this discount program covered by certain pharmacies. bingo! new prescription same drug from authorized pharmacy brought the cost down to under $20/month
Basically- Combat Vets get benefits no questions
Non Combat Vets must meet certain criteria to receive even partial benefits
A good friend is an insurance agent/counselor. She and I went over a number of options and decided on regular Medicare Parts A & B, with a Part G supplement from Physician's Mutual, and Part D from Wellcare. Better coverage for the money than any of the Advantage plans.
Your mileage may vary.
I went to a insurance broker at a large insurance company here. Her salary is the same no matter what policy you choose, so no pushing towards one policy over another.
Not all policies are offered equally from state to state.
This is the first bottle of ear drops I've had in over 7 months. They were on nationwide back order out of Canada.
Good for both of you that you don't need that benefit today. But we all know as we age, we change and you will need that benefit. That benefit is worth a small fortune, hold onto it.
The Medicare debacle sure has become a very deep rabbit hole of complexities! Made to purposely confuse even the most astute senior!
When it comes to all of the Advantage plans, I have noticed a lot of CHANGES being made from one year to the next and most of these changes are a reduction to earlier promises that were once used to attract customers. Now everyone with an advantage plan is urged to make sure your plan hasn't changed and to call every year during the October-December open enrollment plan period. What a pain in the *** that must be with the millions of people out there depending upon this awful system for affordable health care!!
I have opted to stay with original Gov't run A&B Medicare along with my VA primary medical benefits.
Still trying to find a good affordable supplement to add to my wife's regular Medicare to cover that uncovered 20% for major health problems. We did already screw up by not getting into a program during the 3 month before turning 65 and 3 month after turning 65 that will make things a LOT more expensive! 😓
Proving once again that anything the government takes over and tries to run will become exponentially more expensive and complex than it needs to be. I've got about a year and a half before I have to start dealing with this malarkey. I'm NOT looking forward to it.
The goal of the Federal Government is to care for illegals, resident non-citizens and foreign countries across the globe. They provide this at the expense of the US Citizen knowing full well the Citizen is the one that has actually paid for their care during their working career.
The second goal of the beloved Federal Government is for you to die, saving them healthcare money and getting the retirement funds you hold taxed at the rates your children pay. This is a very profitable racket for the Feds. The system is the way it is because that is the way Congress wants it.
MJ, per what I read you probably fall into Priority Group 8, like me. Scroll down and there is a list of co-pays for medications.
https://www.va.gov/health-care/copay-rates/
I worked at the VA for a short time and many people who work there do not know the rules themselves. Almost all the time you have to escalate up the ladder to a supervisor who hopefully knows what they are doing.
We are fortunate that the state has a regional VA rep. that can help us with claims. Maybe you state has an office like this that can help you. I know the agent we have has contacts that I will never be able to speak to.
Yeah, I've been keeping track of that because I figure that sooner or later my insurance will insist on me going generic. Several of them have been certified interchangeable so it shouldn't matter which one if the doc or insurance folk switch me over. So far though, because of the big pharmacy stranglehold, they are only seeing about a 5% decrease in price. Bob