An Easier Way To Understand Medicare
When you want to learn more about Medicare because you are getting close to age 65 and you are a US citizen, it might be hard to find. It used to be that Medicare was an all-encompassing insurance coverage, but it has now been broken down into parts to save premium for those that only want certain parts of the program. The main problem for some people is that it is hard to understand the Medicare summary of what kind of coverage they actually have. When you understand that a Medicare summary now entails several parts that you can pick and choose from, it might make it easier to decide what you should consider for your insurance coverage, even though it might cost more in premiums.
The Medicare program is administered by the CMS or Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Medicaid program is for lower income persons with few assets and it can help pay your premiums for your Medicare in some states. For the most part, the Medicare summary that many people need to consider contains the parts that are lettered A, B, C and D. When you think of the original Medicare program, Medicare Part A is the hospitalization portion of the plan. Because health care costs have skyrocketed, parts of the original Medicare is now broken down as Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B, which covers the doctor fees, treatments, testing and supplies, which were covered as part of the hospital stay, but aren't any longer, without this second coverage.
What this means for many people is that they pay a higher premium for Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B, but if you want the most comprehensive coverage to cover hospital stays and outpatient surgeries, you need this Medicare summary of these two parts. Then the third part of the program is the prescription drug portion, known as Medicare Part D.
If you are wondering why we skipped Medicare Part C of the Medicare summary, you need to think of it as a different animal, so to speak. It is offered by private insurance companies in the form of a PPO or HMO, and you can remember it because the "C" can stand for a "combination of Medicare Part A & Part B" or you can think of it as the most "comprehensive" part of the Medicare summary, also known as the Medicare Advantage Plan, because it can offer lower costs and more benefits, including prescription coverage.
Of course, Medicare Part D is easy to remember because the "D" stands for drugs, as in prescription drugs. There is no easy trick to remember Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B except that the Medicare Part A will take care of "A lot" of the "Actual" hospital bill, but Medicare Part B will take care of the rest of the "Bonus or Bilking" charges and extra fees you see on your hospital bill, such as supplies, doctor fees and the emergency room fees. Unfortunately, many people see these extra fees go as high as the actual hospitalization. Once you understand the different parts of the program, you can see why a Medicare summary isn't as easy as it used to be.