(Snippets from the frontline)
COVID-19/BLM: The Medicare Disadvantage Plan
This time every year we are inundated on TV, in newspapers, and online advertisement to sign up for a Medicare “Advantage” Plan.
As a practicing physician for 40 years, and also a Medicare participant as patient and doctor, reading the fine print can keep you out of harms way.
Medicare “Advantage” Plans are HMOs (health maintenance organizations), with some being very good, while most provide marginal care. Why? Profit.
Government pays HMOs an upfront set amount of money to spend on patients. Their “pot” therefore limits care, so at times medical decision-making allocations are not made by doctors, but instead business people.
Enticement of “freebies” are given in commercials, but ultimately when you are critically ill, HMOs might medically fail you or your loved one even prematurely placing you on hospice end-of-life care. (They save money doing this.)
Yes, “Advantage” plans are cheaper and some seniors understandably can only afford this care. But if you have financial options, read the fine print. Knowing drawbacks might then put you at the “advantage” they advertise.
I can safely say, no Congressperson of age in Washington D.C. is on a Medicare Advantage Plan. Something to think about.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
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