How old are most people here?

Homeschoolie said:
trying to figure out what Medicare to sign up for (or not) And what my health insurance requires that I do and how they coordinate with each other (or not).
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Me too! I turned 65 this month and I attended my state's Medicare info webinar TWICE, and still called with questions! :)

One crazy thing that I'm still confused about, is that if I miss the sweet spot for sign up, but am still in the original sign up window, I have to wait longer for Medicare to start, for example it seems that if I were to retire in July my Medicare would not start until October, but if I retire in August then Medicare would start in September. It was almost (but not quite) worrisome enough to push me to start Medicare while I still have insurance from work, but I figure the headache from having primary and secondary insurance was worse than the gamble that I won't be forced into retirement in the next three months.
And then there's the weirdness that my work health insurance is a pre-tax cost, but Medicare plans are not pre-tax. What?! Why not?!?
 
MarciKS said:
isn't there someone you can go to for advice on which ones what?
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MarciKS said:
are there links as to what's what on those Medicare types?
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Unfortunately it has been made overly complicated on purpose so that people will just give up and sign up for most or all parts (a-f) of Medicare so that the insurance companies will pay almost nothing.
The insurance company manual is hundreds of pages of unfriendly print size. Each category/subject has pages of what it pays w/o Medicare and then there are some complicated pages what Medicare pays if you have the parts that apply to that category.

The math is impossible with all it's various percentages, copays, various deductibles that do or don't apply under this or that combination of circumstance, a different negotiated amount for each doctor/hospital/clinic etc. , catstropic limits met or not met, doctors in network or out of network, doctors in or out of network that accept Medicare and those that don't accept it, hospitals and clinics that are in network but the doctor/nurse/anesthesiologist that treated you isn't in network, and what all the above means and applies IF you have this Medicare part or that Medicare part etc.

The customer service folks can't possibly and don't understand the complicated mess
It is a nightmare. The bottom line is you will never know until you get the bill. With this many rules they know you will never be able to contest the bill because you can't possibly prove that the astronomical bill you were sent is wrong.

My husband for a short time worked for an insurance company and saw the computer code algorithms that determine all of this. He said it was a nightmare for the computer programmers whenever the company needed them to make changes to the algorithms to compute payouts and peoples bills.

I am leaning toward only signing up for only part A and let the insurance company pay the most since they set up this complicated mess.
 
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I have Tricare4Life from the Military. Medicare is my main provider. Part A & B. I pay $144.60 monthly.
When being billed for visits Medicare pays 80% of the bill and Tricare pays the 20%. No deductibles during any visit.
Prescriptions are FREE from the Naval Base.
Not too bad of an insurance, eh. ;)
 

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