All this time I assumed it was Medicare Advantage

[dreamshark]

 In 2015 I retired and had to pick a Medicare supplementary insurance plan. I chose HealthPartners Freedom, which fell into the "Medicare Part C" slot, so I assumed it was a Medicare Advantage program. I was wrong. Apparently it was an older program called the "Cost" program rather than "Advantage." Now I hear that the Cost programs are being discontinued due to Federal policy changes and I have to switch to an Advantage program next year. This made me quite nervous, since the coverage we have has been working just swell and is remarkably cheap. And generally any federally mandated change to health insurance these days turns out to be terrible. Today I got an ominous looking packet of papers explaining the difference between my old plan and the new one that we will be switched to by default. 

To my great relief, the differences from the customer point of view are minor. Our monthly premiums actually DROP more than 1/3 in return for a $100 higher annual deductible on the pharmacy plan and slightly more risk at the high end of the bad luck continuum (for instance, the annual cap on out-of-pocket expenses goes up from $3400 to $4500). Most stuff stays the same. The Park Nicollet medical complex (which provides all our health care) is still covered, office co-pays are the same, and Silver Sneakers is still free. There are a few more bells and whistles on the new program, such as $75 towards glasses, that will come in handy. So I'm fine with the default choice and don't have to go into frantic spreadsheet mode trying to pick a new plan. *whew*

Comments

[pameladean]

Oh, that's a relief to hear. I have a different plan that I also believed to be Medicare Advantage but also turned out to be a Cost plan, so of course it's going away too; but I haven't gotten my ominous package yet.

The raised cap on out-of-pocket expenses is evil, though.

P.

[dreamshark]

Well, that's why you need to look at all the details and assess your own sensitivity to risk factors. There might well be another plan with lower caps but higher day-to-day payments. There were certainly a lot of variations on that theme when I went through the exercise of picking a plan 4 years ago.

Personally I would rather pay a couple of hundred less in premiums per year (a certainty) than worry about hitting the out of pocket cap (which has never happened). What I want from an out-of-pocket cap is the assurance that we won't suddenly owe half a million in medical bills because of some medical catastrophe. The difference between $3K and $4K isn't important in that scenario.

[pameladean]

Oh, sure. And since I didn't have the same plan to start with, whatever they offer me as a replacement may have had different juggling done with it. It's annoying to have to go through the whole process AGAIN, but there's no help for it.

P.

[dreamshark]

Health Partners sent me a nice little chart with Old Plan on the left and New Plan on the right so it was easy to compare. Let us hope that your provider does the same.