Doctors and Medicare Patients Continue to be Dropped From Private Medicare Advantage Products
Important Notice: YOUR MEDICARE PLAN WON’T BE OFFERED IN 2016. This was the heading of an eight page letter my client, age 73, received from her private Medicare Advantage carrier in October of 2015.
She was in tears when we met during November and didn’t know what to do. Her husband, who died six months earlier, had enrolled them in a private managed Medicare plan with a very low premium when they first became eligible for Medicare seven years ago.
Dropping doctors and Medicare patients from their networks has become routine for Medicare Advantage insurance providers as large companies merge or buy smaller companies, or lose doctors from their networks, and then decide the product is no longer profitable.
This would never have happened had she enrolled in the Traditional Federal Medicare program. What’s the difference?
Private Medicare Advantage has many different products accepted by fewer doctors and health providers on a case by case basis. The private products can change anytime at the discretion of the insurance provider with very short notice.
Traditional Federal Medicare has one guaranteed (non cancelable) plan accepted by almost all doctors and health providers nationwide and will not change. There are no last minute cancellation notices sent to scare seniors.
A November 16, 2013 Wall Street article reported the largest carrier in the Medicare Advantage market, UnitedHealthGroup Inc., dropped thousands of physicians from its networks in at least ten states during the last months of 2013.
More than 2500 cancer patients at Moffett Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, were forced to switch products or find other physicians.
Profit driven market based Medicare Advantage products are accountable to their shareholders, with emphasis on profits, while the Traditional Federal Medicare plan of insurance is accountable to the Medicare beneficiary.
Fortunately, we were able to move our frightened client back to a Traditional Federal Medicare plan with supplemental insurance that was far better than her managed care private Medicare Advantage product.
Enrolling in a market based (sales pitch) private Medicare Advantage product just because it offers such a low premium is one of the three biggest blunders Medicare beneficiaries make. Stay with the Traditional Federal Medicare insurance plan when you first enroll, which offers low administrative costs, safety, predictability and peace of mind.
Remember, Traditional Medicare is an insurance plan and private Medicare Advantage is an insurance product treated like a commodity and subject to change anytime.
