Tag: Medicare Rights Center

Uncle Sam Wants You … to Help Stop Insurers’ Bogus Medicare Advantage Sales Tactics

By Susan Jaffe, KHN  | November 30, 2023 | This story also ran on  

People gathered at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. in July protested denials and delays in private Medicare Advantage plans. (Alex Wong/Getty Image)

After an unprecedented crackdown on misleading advertising claims by insurers selling private Medicare Advantage and drug plans, the Biden administration hopes to unleash a special weapon to make sure companies follow the new rules: you.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are encouraging seniors and other members of the public to become fraud detectives by reporting misleading or deceptive sales tactics to 800-MEDICARE, the agency’s 24-hour information hotline. Suspects include postcards designed to look like they’re from the government and TV ads with celebrities promising benefits and low fees that are available only to some people in certain counties.

The new rules, which took effect Sept. 30, close some loopholes in existing requirements by describing what insurers can say in ads and other promotional materials as well as during the enrollment process. [Continued on Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

Medicare Surprise: Drug Plan Prices Touted During Open Enrollment Can Rise Within a Month

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | May 3, 2022 | This KHN story also ran on

Something strange happened between the time Linda Griffith signed up for a new Medicare prescription drug plan during last fall’s enrollment period and when she tried to fill her first prescription in January.

She picked a Humana drug plan for its low prices, with help from her longtime insurance agent and Medicare’s Plan Finder, an online pricing tool for comparing a dizzying array of options. But instead of the $70.09 she expected to pay for her dextroamphetamine, used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, her pharmacist told her she owed $275.90.

“I didn’t pick it up because I thought something as wrong,” said Griffith, 73, a retired construction company accountant who lives in the Northern California town of Weaverville.  “To me, when you purchase a plan, you have an implied contract,” she said. “I say I will pay the premium on time for this plan. And they’re going to make sure I get the drug for a certain amount.”

But it often doesn’t work that way.  [Full story in Kaiser Health News, NPR  and Tampa Bay Times]  

 

 

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Website Errors Raise Calls For Medicare To Be Flexible With Seniors’ Enrollment

Seniors will be able to change plans any time next year if they discover their coverage doesn’t provide what the government’s Plan Finder promised. 

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | December 6, 2019 | This article also ran on

Saturday is the deadline for most people with Medicare coverage to sign up for private drug and medical plans for next year. But members of Congress, health care advocates and insurance agents worry that enrollment decisions based on bad information from the government’s revamped, error-prone Plan Finder website will bring unwelcome surprises.

Beneficiaries could be stuck in plans that cost too much and don’t meet their medical needs — with no way out until 2021.

On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Kaiser Health News that beneficiaries would be able to change plans next year because of Plan Finder misinformation, although officials provided few details. [Continued at Kaiser Health News or NPR.]   …

As Medicare Enrollment Nears, Popular Price Comparison Tool Is Missing

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | October 8, 2019 | This article also ran in the

Millions of older adults can start signing up next week for private policies offering Medicare drug and medical coverage for 2020. But many risk wasting money and even jeopardizing their health care due to changes in Medicare’s plan finder, its most popular website. 

 For more than a decade, beneficiaries used the plan finder to compare dozens of Medicare policies offered by competing insurance companies and get a list of their options. Yet after a website redesign six weeks ago, the search results are missing crucial details: How much will you pay out-of-pocket? And which plan offers the best value?  [Continued at Kaiser Health News, San Francisco

 Chronicle  Chicago Tribune and The Seattle Times]…

Social Security Error Jeopardizes Medicare Coverage For 250,000 Seniors

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | June 6, 2019 | This KHN story also ran on 

At least a quarter of a million Medicare beneficiaries may receive bills for as many as five months of premiums they thought they already paid.

But they shouldn’t toss the letter in the garbage. It’s not a scam or a mistake.

Because of what the Social Security Administration calls “a processing error” that occurred in January, it did not deduct premiums from some seniors’ Social Security checks and it didn’t pay the insurance plans.

 [Continued at Kaiser Health News or NPR ]

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Trumpeted New Medicare Advantage Benefits Will Be Hard For Seniors To Find

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | November 9, 2018 | This KHN story also ran on 

For some older adults, private Medicare Advantage plans next year will offer a host of new benefits, such as transportation to medical appointments, home-delivered meals, wheelchair ramps, bathroom grab bars or air conditioners for asthma sufferers.

But the new benefits will not be widely available, and they won’t be easy to find.

Of the 3,700 plans across the country next year, only 273 in 21 states will offer at least one. About 7 percent of Advantage members — 1.5 million people — will have access, Medicare officials estimate.

That means even for the savviest shoppers it will be a challenge to figure out which plans offer the new benefits and who qualifies for them.

Medicare officials have touted the expansion as historic and an innovative way to keep seniors healthy and independent. Despite that enthusiasm, a full listing of the new services is not available on the web-based “Medicare Plan Finder,” the government tool used by beneficiaries, counselors and insurance agents to sort through dozens of plan options. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, NPR and CNN]…

Looking For Lower Medicare Drug Costs? Ask Your Pharmacist For The Cash Price.

Sometimes a drug plan’s copay is higher than the cash, but insurers’ “gag orders” keep pharmacists from telling Medicare beneficiaries. A little-known Medicare rule requires pharmacists to divulge the lower cash price if patients ask.

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | May 30, 2018 | This KHN story also ran on 

As part of President Donald Trump’s blueprint to bring down prescription costs, Medicare officials have warned insurers that “gag orders” 

Scott Olson/Getty Images

keeping pharmacists from alerting seniors that they could save money by paying cash — rather than using their insurance — are “unacceptable and contrary” to the government’s effort to promote price transparency.

But the agency stopped short of requiring insurers to lift such restrictions on pharmacists.

That doesn’t mean people with Medicare drug coverage are destined to overpay for prescriptions. Under a little-known Medicare rule, they can pay a lower cash price for prescriptions instead of using their insurance. But first, they must ask the pharmacist about that option…. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, NPR and CNN Money]…

Lifting Therapy Caps Is A Load Off Medicare Patients’ Shoulders

Last month’s budget deal means Medicare beneficiaries are eligible for physical and occupational therapy indefinitely. Plus, prescription drug costs will fall for more seniors.

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | March 14, 2018 | This KHN story also ran on 

Physical therapy helps Leon Beers, 73, get out of bed in the morning and

Leon Beers gets help from caregiver Timothy Wehe. (Bert Johnson for KHN)

maneuver around his home using his walker. Other treatment strengthens his throat muscles so that he can communicate and swallow food, said his sister Karen Morse. But in mid-January, his home health care agency told Morse it could no longer provide these services because he had used all his therapy benefits allowed under Medicare for the year.

… Under a recent change in federal law, people who qualify for Medicare’s [physical, occupational and speech] therapy services will no longer lose them solely because they used too much. 

“It is a great idea,” said Beers. “It will help me get back to walking.” [Continued at Kaiser Health News,  NPR  and The Washington Post]

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Changes in the US tax system will also affect health care

Volume 391, Number 10117   
20 January 2018

 

WORLD REPORT    The tax overhaul pushed by Republicans could jeopardise the ACA’s health insurance marketplaces. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.   

…The new tax law contains a provision aimed at an… administration target, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Next year, it eliminates the ACA’s tax penalty for Americans who disregard the requirement to have health insurance, one of the law’s most unpopular features. Even though the ACA’s health insurance mandate is still quite intact, Trump and others claim there is effectively no mandate without a penalty.
“When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed”, Trump said shortly before signing the tax bill into law last month. “And we’ll come up with something that will be much better, whether it’s block grants or whether it’s taking what we have and doing something terrific.”  [full story here]

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A Few Pointers To Help Save Money And Avoid The Strain Of Medicare Enrollment

By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | Oct. 17, 2017 | This article also ran in   and 

Older or disabled Americans with Medicare coverage have probably noticed an uptick in mail solicitations from health insurance companies, which can mean only one thing: It’s time for the annual Medicare open enrollment.

Most beneficiaries have from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7 to decide which of dozens of private plans offer the best drug coverage for 2018 or whether it’s better to leave traditional Medicare and get a drug and medical combo policy called Medicare Advantage.

Some tips for the novice and reminders for those who have been here before can make the process a little easier. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, USA Today and The Washington Post]

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Money-Saving Offer For Medicare’s Late Enrollees Is Expiring. Can They Buy Time?

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | September 22, 2017 | This KHN story also ran on     

[UPDATE: Since this article was published, Medicare officials extended the deadline for applying for an exemption to the Part B late enrollment penalty to Sept. 30, 2018. The announcement came in a fact sheet posted on Oct. 12, 2017.]

Many older Americans who have Affordable Care Act insurance policies are going to miss a Sept. 30 deadline to enroll in Medicare, and they need more time to make the change, advocates say.

A lifetime of late enrollment penalties typically await people who don’t sign up for Medicare Part B — which covers doctor visits and other outpatient services — when they first become eligible. That includes people who mistakenly thought that because they had insurance through the ACA marketplaces, they didn’t need to enroll in Medicare.

Medicare officials are offering to waive those penalties under a temporary rule change that began earlier this year, but the deal ends Sept. 30.

On Wednesday, more than 40 groups, including consumer health advocacy organizations and insurers, asked Medicare chief Seema Verma to extend the waiver deadline through at least Dec. 31, because they are worried that many people who could be helped still don’t know about it. [Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

Feds To Waive Penalties For Some Who Signed Up Late For Medicare

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | June 6, 2017 | This KHN story also ran on     

[UPDATE: Since this article was published, Medicare officials extended the deadline for applying for an exemption to the Part B late enrollment penalty to Sept. 30, 2018. The announcement came in a fact sheet posted on Oct. 12, 2017.]

Each year, thousands of Americans miss their deadline to enroll in Medicare, and federal officials and consumer advocates worry that many of them mistakenly think they don’t need to sign up because they have purchased insurance on the health law’s marketplaces. That decision can leave them facing a lifetime of enrollment penalties.

Now Medicare has temporarily changed its rules to offer a reprieve from penalties for people who kept Affordable Care Act policies after becoming eligible for Medicare.

“Many of these individuals did not receive the information necessary [when they became eligible for Medicare or when they initially enrolled] in coverage through the marketplace to make an informed decision regarding” Medicare enrollment, said a Medicare spokesman, explaining the policy change.

Those who qualify include people 65 and older who have a marketplace plan or had one they lost or canceled, as well as people who have qualified for Medicare due to a disability but chose to use marketplace plans. They have until Sept. 30 to request a waiver of the usual penalty Medicare assesses when people delay signing up for Medicare’s Part B, which covers visits to the doctor and other outpatient care…

“This has been a problem from the beginning of the Affordable Care Act, because the government didn’t understand that people would not know when they needed to sign up for Medicare,” said Bonnie Burns, a consultant for California Health Advocates, a consumer group. “Once they had insurance, that relieved all the stress of not having coverage and then when they became eligible for Medicare, nobody told them to make that change.”[Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

By Law, Hospitals Now Must Tell Medicare Patients When Care Is ‘Observation’ Only

By Susan Jaffe | KAISER  HEALTH  NEWS | March 13, 2017 |This story also ran in usat 4sidebar

Under a new federal law, hospitals across the country must now alert Medicare patients when they are getting observation care and why they were not admitted — even if they stay in the hospital a few nights. For years, seniors often found out only when they got

Hospitals must complete this notice and give it to Medicare observation patients.

surprise bills for the services Medicare doesn’t cover for observation patients, including some drugs and expensive nursing home care.

The notice may cushion the shock but probably not settle the issue.

When patients are too sick to go home but not sick enough to be admitted, observation care gives doctors time to figure out what’s wrong. It is considered an outpatient service, like a doctor’s visit. Unless their care falls under a new Medicare bundled-payment category, observation patients pay a share of the cost of each test, treatment or other services.  And if they need nursing home care to recover their strength, Medicare won’t pay for it because that coverage requires a prior hospital admission of at least three consecutive days.

Observation time doesn’t count.

“Letting you know would help, that’s for sure,” said Suzanne Mitchell, of Walnut Creek, Calif. When her 94-year-old husband fell and was taken to a hospital last September, she was told he would be admitted. It was only after seven days of hospitalization that she learned he had been an observation patient. He was due to leave the next day and enter a nursing home, which Medicare would not cover. She still doesn’t know why.

“If I had known [he was in observation care], I would have been on it like a tiger because I knew the consequences

This KHN article also ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

by then, and I would have done everything I could to insist that they change that outpatient/inpatient,” said Mitchell, a retired respiratory therapist. “I have never, to this day, been able to have anybody give me the written policy the hospital goes by to decide.” Her husband was hospitalized two more times and died in December. His nursing home sent a bill for nearly $7,000 that she has not yet paid.  [Continued at Kaiser Health News and USA Today] …

COBRA, Retiree Plans, VA Benefits Don’t Alleviate Need To Sign Up For Medicare

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | December 14, 2016 | This KHN story also ran on     

When Cindy Hunter received her Medicare card in the mail last spring, she said she “didn’t know a lot about Medicare.” She and her husband, retired teachers who live in a Philadelphia suburb, decided she didn’t need it because she shared his retiree health insurance, which covered her treatment for ovarian cancer.

Cindy Hunter, who is battling ovarian cancer, says she mistakenly thought she didn’t need to enroll in Medicare because her husband’s retiree insurance would cover her. (Steph Brecht/Courtesy of Cindy Hunter)

“We were so thankful we had good insurance,” she said. So she sent back the card, telling officials she would keep Medicare Part A, which is free for most older or disabled Americans and covers hospitalization, some nursing home stays and home health care. But she turned down Part B, which covers doctor visits and other outpatient care and comes with a monthly premium charge. A new Medicare card arrived that says she only has Part A.

Her story isn’t unique.

When Stan Withers left a job at a medical device company to become vice president of a small start-up near Sacramento, Calif., he took his health insurance with him. Under a federal law known as COBRA, he paid the full cost to continue his coverage from his previous employer. A few years earlier, when he turned 65, he signed up for

This KHN article also ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Medicare’s Part A. With the addition of a COBRA plan, he thought he didn’t need Medicare Part B.

Hunter and Withers now know they were wrong and are stuck with medical bills their insurance won’t cover. …Advocates for seniors and some members of Congress want to fix the problem, backed by a broad, unlikely group of unions, health insurers, patient organizations, health care providers and even eight former Medicare administrators.  [Continued on Kaiser Health News or NPR or The Philadelphia Inquirer]…

Seeking Dental Care For Older Americans

Since Medicare doesn’t cover most dental care, seniors often go without treatment.

By SUSAN JAFFE  | Health Affairs | December 2016 | Volume 35, Number 12

The last time Evelyn Sell went to the dentist was nearly three years ago, when he told her his staff would no longer be able to lift her out of her wheelchair and into the dentist’s chair. “That really threw me for a loop,” said Sell, 87, a retired preschool teacher who lives in Kingsley Manor, a retirement community in Los Angeles. “I didn’t know what I was going to do about dental care.”

Care at home: During a recent visit to Kingsley Manor, a Los Angeles, California, senior living community, dental hygienist Maria Ladd uses an intraoral camera to take photos of resident Ruth Wilson’s teeth. (Photo: Susanna Castillo)

…Then earlier this year, she found the solution. A flyer in her mail informed her that the management of her assisted living facility had partnered with the Virtual Dental Home project run by Pacific Center for Special Care at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. Sell could have a dental hygienist come to her home. She was one of the first residents to sign up.

The project is one of several innovative demonstrations that providers and researchers are developing to serve vulnerable uninsured or underinsured patients. Despite their promise, however, these efforts meet only a fraction of the need. A comprehensive solution would likely require federal legislation, but bills to broadly expand Medicare’s dental coverage have languished in Congress. So some advocates for older adults are working on a third front, seeking changes to Medicare coverage policy based on the idea that dental care can be an integral part of the medically necessary care Medicare covers. [Continued here] …

Officials Warn Some Older Marketplace Customers To Switch To Medicare

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | October 14 2016 |  This KHN story also ran in 

Ever since the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces opened for business in 2014, the Obama administration has worked hard to make sure Americans sign up. Yet officials now are telling some older people they might have too much insurance and they should cancehealthcare-gov-letterl their marketplace policies.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is targeting two groups. First the agency is sending emails each month to about 15,000 people with subsidized marketplace coverage. The messages arrive a few weeks before their 6
5th birthday, which is also the age most people become eligible for Medicare. The email reminders will go to enrollees in the 38 states that use the federal marketplace.

“In most cases you won’t want to keep your Marketplace plan because once your Medicare coverage starts, you’ll no longer be eligible for any premium tax credits or other cost savings you may be getting for your Marketplace plan,” the notice says.  “To avoid an unwanted overlap in Marketplace and Medicare coverage … tell us you want to end your Marketplace plan.”

…Beneficiaries shoulder a lot of responsibility, even though there is no requirement they all be told what to do and when. Only the individual can terminate marketplace coverage when he or she becomes eligible for Medicare. Inaction means paying back any coverage subsidies received after they should have joined Medicare.  [Continued in  Kaiser Health News or The Washington Post]

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US presidential candidates’ proposals to reduce drug prices

lancet cover 2
Volume 388,  Number 10047
27 August 2016
 WORLD REPORT   US presidential candidates’ proposals to reduce drug prices Clinton and Trump seem to agree on at least some ways to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, but Clinton offers more details.   Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports. [Continued here] 
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Senate Panel Kills Medicare Program That Offers Help On Enrollment, Billing Issues

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | June 17, 2016 | This KHN story also ran on     nprlogo_138x46

A program that has helped seniors understand the many intricacies of Medicare as well as save them millions of dollars would be eliminated by a budget bill overwhelmingly approved last week by the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

The State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or “SHIP,” is among more than a dozen programs left out of the bill by the committee. Cutting these “unnecessary federal programs” helped provide needed funding for other efforts, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the appropriations committee’s health and labor subcommittee, said in a statement last week.

Ending SHIP saves $52 million, which will help pay for a $2 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health, restore year-round Pell Grants, and increase resources to prevent and treat opioid abuse, among other things.

SHIP counselors are in every state, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories offering free advice on how to choose from an array of drug and health insurance plans, challenge coverage denials, and receive financial subsidies for premiums, co-payments and deductibles. …Ohio’s SHIP program saved seniors $20.8 million in 2015 and was ranked first in the nation by the Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s lieutenant governor announced in February. [Continued on Kaiser Health News or NPR]

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Buying Supplemental Insurance Can Be Hard For Younger Medicare Beneficiaries

By Susan Jaffe | February 3,  2016 | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with Money magazine

Danny Thompson’s kidneys have failed and he needs a transplant but in some ways, he’s lucky: Both of his sons want to give him one of theirs, and his Medicare coverage will take care of most his expenses.

Danny Thompson    (Heidi de Marco/KHN) 

Yet the 53-year-old Californian is facing another daunting obstacle: He doesn’t

have the money for his share of the medical bills and follow-up drugs, and he can’t buy supplemental insurance to help cover his costs.

“It’s frustrating to be in the shape I’m in,” said Thompson, who depends on dialysis instead of his kidneys to cleanse his blood. “My plan is to get a transplant so I can go back to work.”

Almost one in four Medicare beneficiaries has such a policy, known as Medigap, which is sold by private insurance companies. It can help pay for costs Medicare doesn’t cover, including the 20 percent coinsurance required for medical expenses, including certain drugs, plus deductibles and co-payments. Those expenses have no out-of-pocket limit for beneficiaries.

Money cover

This KHN story also ran on Money.

Federal law requires companies to sell Medigap plans to any Medicare beneficiary aged 65 or older within six months of signing up for Part B, which covers doctor visits and other outpatient services. If they sign up during this guaranteed open enrollment, they cannot be charged higher premiums due to their medical conditions.

But Congress left it to states to determine whether Medigap plans are sold to the more than 9 million people younger than 65 years old who qualify for Medicare because of a disability. [Continued in Kaiser Health News or Money magazine.]…

Can you hear me now?

The President’s science advisors say innovative technology can provide low-cost alternatives to pricey hearing aids.
Susan Jaffe  |  Washington Correspondent for The Lancet  |  11th November 2015
Almost The Lancet USA blog logo30 million Americans over 60 years old have difficulty hearing, but less than a third can afford hearing aids, according to a report to President Barack Obama by his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology two weeks ago. Even though hearing loss is often part of the natural aging process, the council did not recommend that Medicare, pay for hearing aids, which can cost an average of $5,000 to $6,000 for a pair. [Continued here]
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Don’t Just Renew Your Medicare Plan. Shopping Around Can Save Money.

By Susan Jaffe | October 15, 2015 | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with Money magazine

Ten years after a prescription drug benefit was added to Medicare, 39 million older or disabled AmerMoney 4icans have coverage to help pay for their medicine, including most of the 17 million with private insurance policies known as Medicare Advantage, an alternative to traditional Medicare.
The annual enrollmentmedicare-shop-KHN 101515 period for these private drug and Advantage plans for 2016 starts Thursday and runs through Dec. 7.
It pays to shop around. The monthly cost is increasing an average 26 percent for UnitedHealthcare’s AARP MedicareRx Saver Plus while the First Health Value Plus plan
is dropping an average 13 percent, according to an analysis of the 10 most popular drug plans by Avalere Health, a research firm.
Some actual costs may be even more dramatic. In Albany, N.Y., the price of a Cigna-HealthSpring drug plan is going up 36 percent, according to the StateWide Senior Action Council, a New York consumer group. [More in Kaiser Health News or Money magazine]
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When Turning 65, Consumers With Marketplace Plans Need To Be Vigilant In Choosing Health Coverage

By Susan Jaffe  | June 25, 2015 |  Kaiser Health News

BeforKHN logoe the Affordable Care Act, older adults who couldn’t afford to buy their own health insurance would count the days until their 65th birthday, when Medicare would kick in. Now, 10,000 Americans hit that milestone every day, but for some who have coverage through the ACA’s insurance marketplaces, Medicare may not be the obvious next step.

“Consumers eligible for Medicare can keep or renew their marketplace plan,” said Medicare spokesman Alper Ozinal, as long as they don’t also join Medicare. [Continued in Kaiser Health News]…

Link

By Susan Jaffe   |   June 21, 2013 |  KAISER HEALTH NEWS in collaboration with WaPo logo

Within days, the company that handles an average of more than 60,000 calls daily about Medicare will be deluged by new inquiries about health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.KHN logo

The six Medicare call centers run by Vangent, a company based in Arlington, Va., will answer questions about the health care law from the 34 states that opted out of running their own online health insurance marketplaces or decided to operate them jointly with the federal government.

The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that Vangent’s call centers will receive 42 million calls about the federal marketplaces this year, a daily average of up to 200,000; plus answer 2,400 letters and 740 e-mails, and host 500 Web chats daily. Customer service representatives will take consumers through the process — from shopping for a plan to enrolling.

Running the 800-Medicare call centers may provide valuable experience, but Vangent’s track record reveals that it was slow to adapt when changes in the Medicare program caused dramatic spikes in demand.

“It’s going to be huge,” said Bonnie Burns, a training and policy specialist at California Health Advocates. “The number of calls they are likely to get will probably dwarf anything they saw in Medicare.” MORE