Getting Ready for Medicare Health Insurance

Everything seems to happen all together at 65. You feel like you are officially old. You have to retire, and then there is the whole Medicare health insurance thing to get past all the red tape. But that last one happens to be a piece of good news too. You'll never have to pay for medical insurance again. Medicare was put together by the bureaucracy and it shows. It doesn't matter that you are a lawyer who can juggle all lawbooks at the same time, or a doctor yourself - if anyone asks you how to choose among all the options in Medicare, so bad is it you'd feel that no cover might be a pretty good option after all. The worst part is that the options you pick as a fresh retiree are ones you will have to live with to the end of your days, when possibly your income level will change, and your healthcare needs too.

It wasn't too long ago that it was simple enough that you would retire and then show up at the Social Security office to pick among the plans. The A plan covered hospitalization, home visits by nurses, the whole thing. The B plan, added on for about $100 a month, covered outpatient visits too. Well, no longer. There is a D plan now that talks about filling prescriptions too. In all, the private insurance companies offer coverage at different prices. They also offer Medicare Advantage plans that put all the players together under an HMO-like system. Many private companies also offer dental coverage at extra charge. There are so many of them now that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services, the government body, is trying to get plan options down to more manageable levels. And what do you do when your Medicare health insurance doesn't cover some conditions? Well,for the uncovered gap, you buy Medigap, of course.

It is complicated because it is difficult to figure out what each plan covers. It is not comprehensive coverage by any stretch of imagination. For example, if you need physiotherapy, Medicare will only cover it if it is for a short while. Medicare Advantage offers the best. You can keep your current doctor, and you probably have doctors chosen for you under the system. But if you should, for some reason, need a doctor outside of the circuit, not even Medicare Advantage can help you, even at extra charge.

And while Medicare Advantage does offer you more, they make up by restricting you in some other ways. If you would care to pay for health, navigating this strange system, private insurance companies offer you insurance counseling and handholding for a couple of hundred dollars. At least the government allows you to change your plan once a year, should you make a mistake. Before you sign up, do be sure that it does everything you want. Changing your mind is possible, but you do pay a 10% penalty for it.