Medicare Supplement Plan N - Best Value?
medigap
plan
n can be a greatvalue
its premiums are often 30 percent less thanPlan
F and 20 percent less thanplan
G and that means if you're new toMedicare
you might be able to find aplan
in for under a hundred dollars a month depending on what state you're in so you might be wondering well what's the catch then withplan
in well there's no trickery or a super fine print involved however there are some things you need to know aboutplan
in and what benefits it doesn'tcover so stick with me and I'll tell you what they are hi I'm Joann Quinn and thanks for joining me today I'm co-founder of re Medigap comm where I've written over 50 articles about
Medicare
and Medicaid insurance and when we're talking aboutMedicare
insuranceMedicare
supplement
s specifically we often think of MedigapPlan
F and that's because it's been the most popular one for years and it covers all your coinsurance co-pays and deductibles when we think aboutvalue
plan
s with medigapplan
g comes to mind butplan
and should not be overlooked it's low premiums make it stand out you just need to know what benefits it does not have when compared toplan
F andplan
G taking a look atplan
FG and in side-by-sideplan
F of course covers every benefit on the chart whereasplan
G andplan
in don't cover the Part B deductible that's what these twoplan
s have in common now let's focus on the differences ofplan
end because this is where itreally starts to separate itself from
plan
G withplan
n you have co-pays to the provider and to the emergency room let's start with the provider when you visit the provider you will have a copay anywhere from $0 to $20.00 so that means the provider and their discretion can charge you a zero dollar copay anything in between but never more than 20 dollars to visit that provider and so rest assured that when you go to the doctor your copay would never be more than 20 dollars and it could be aslittle as $0 the emergency room copay that is a $50 copay however if you're admitted into the hospital that copay is waived but you do need to make sure that you are admitted under Part A expense okay that was the easy part now we're moving on to
Medicare
Part B excess charges now excess charges are covered underPlan
F andplan
G but they are not a covered benefit underplan
n but the good news is is that if you visit a doctor who acceptsmedicare
assignmentplan
B excess charges wouldnot apply to you under
plan
n and this is important and this is what we're going to discuss right now is Part B excess charges andMedicare
assignment and how they go together and how it can affect you onplan
in all right a doctor can acceptMedicare
patients but not acceptMedicare
assignment I'm going to repeat that again a doctor can seeMedicare
patients but not acceptMedicare
assignment this is really important and underplan
n something we need to pay attention to when a doctordoesn't accept
Medicare
assignment basically what they're tellingMedicare
is will see theseMedicare
patients but we don't agree with how much you're paying us and by you they're talking toMedicare
they don't agree with theMedicare
approved amount so when they tellMedicare
they don't accept assignment what they're saying is we don't accept how muchMedicare
is paying us so now we're allowed to charge the patient 15 percent of the approved amount fromMedicare
so for example if you went to the doctor and the doctor sent your claim toMedicare
and chargedMedicare
$250 for the service provided to youMedicare
may only approve $100 of that if the doctor does not acceptMedicare
assignment then they are allowed to charge you 15% of that hundred dollars which means you would get a bill for $15 and that's not a huge excess charge but it is an excess charge in an example of how it could add up over time now it's easy to find out if doctorsaccept
Medicare
assignment or not and I'm going to show you how here we are atmedicare
.gov where we're going to locate doctors and whether or not they acceptMedicare
assignment I'm going to show you how easy this is all you need to do is go to find doctors and other health professionals and here you can put in your zip code city state and address and then over here you can put in your doctors last name or specialty or they ask for a medical condition so they give you a variety ofchoices in order to search for a doctor I'm going to put in a zip code up to nine five seven six and I don't know let's say let's say there's a doctor Smith and here are some Smith's okay so we'll select this Smith and we'll do a search and it'll populate and it's going to tell me a little bit of information about this doctor but what I'm looking for is whether or not this doctor accepts
Medicare
assignment and at the very bottom it will tell me thisdoctor accepts
medicare
assignment and here it's saying the healthcare professional accepts theMedicare
approved amount you will not be billed for any more than theMedicare
deductible and coinsurance so basically what that means like we said before Medigapplan
in you pay that Part B deductible and then coinsurance which if you haveplan
in you're not going to pay for coinsurance it's going to be covered so what they're telling you here is that you won't have to worry aboutPart B access charges the only thing you have to worry about is the deductible which you already know you have to pay and any coinsurance and that applies to people who don't have a Medigap
plan
but who only haveMedicare
Part A and B they have to pay that 20% coinsurance they don't have anything helping them out okay let's do a new search and we're going to do it by specialty this time let's say dermatologist dermatology here we go let's see what doctors are in this areathat do dermatology and whether or not the accept assignment so here they're giving us a list within this area of doctors and if you take a look here see this little I guess it looks to me like a little clipboard I'm sure it's very tiny on your screen but the point is is this little clipboard shows you that the doctor accepts
Medicare
assignment this is the symbol for accepting assignment as you can see every single one of these doctors that's popping up actually actually acceptsassignment it may be hard to find anyone who doesn't it's like I said before not very many doctors don't but aha we found one here we did find a doctor that doesn't accept
Medicare
assignment and you can tell because it has a little question mark I'm going to open him up let's take a peek so here's a little information about this doctor but what it says at the bottom which we're most interested with right now is that may acceptMedicare
assignment so it'squestionable so you are taking a chance that you may be billed Part B excess charges if you see this physician it says the health care professional may accept the
Medicare
approved amount you may be billed for more than theMedicare
deductible and coinsurance so what that means is you may be billed for Part B excess charges okay I'm going to go back to the physician compare home so you can see where it is if you need to go back you also have this little tab if you just want to go back toyour original results we can do that and it'll take you back to your list of doctors and if you want to go back to the physician compare home you can do that as well before we do that I want to show you the side over here the sidebar you can ask
Medicare
to only show you those who acceptMedicare
approved amount and we're going to update the results and now that doctor is gone so you can refine your search the way you want over on the sidebar so that's pretty handy tool now you seehow easy that was to find out if a doctor accepts
Medicare
assignment and clearly many do now you can also call a doctor's office and ask them if they acceptMedicare
assignment but I struggle with that because sometimes you just don't know who's working at the office who's picking up that phone and who you're talking to it could be someone who's brand-new or someone who really doesn't understand whatMedicare
assignment really means so that's why I like usingMedicare
Gove's tool to find out if a doctor actually does acceptMedicare
assignment as a side note there are some states that do not allow access charges that would be aMedicare
overcharge measured law those dates are Connecticut Massachusetts Minnesota New York Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island in Vermont and if you useplan
in in any of those states you would not be charged a Part B excess charge okay time for a quick quiz and this is going to be fun and no one's keeping track exceptyou so let's see how well you do all right question number one Medigap
plan
in and medigapplan
g don't cover which benefit aMedicare
Part A deductible BMedicare
Part B deductible CMedicare
Part B coinsurance or D none of the above and you can pause the video if you need to think about it okay here is the answer if you said B the Part B deductible then you're correct that's the one benefitplan
G andplan
n don't cover question number two Medigapplan
and provider co-paysare usually more than $20 a visit a true or be false okay here's the answer if you said B false you're correct the provider co-pays are never more than $20 and remember that can be as little as $0 but never more than 20 question number three you pay
Medicare
Part B excess charges if a you haveplan
ned in and you visit a doctor who acceptsmedicare
assignment B you have medigapplan
g and visit a doctor who doesn't acceptMedicare
assignment C you haveplan
in and visit a providerthat doesn't accept
Medicare
assignment D none of the above the answer is Cplan
n does not cover Part B excess charges and they're only applied if the provider doesn't acceptMedicare
assignment last question number four thebest
way to find out if a doctor acceptsmedicare
assignment is to a call the doctor's office B wait and see if you get a bill C use the physician tool finder atmedicare
.gov or D callMedicare
well this was a bit of a tricky one I suppose you could do anyof the above but during our video obviously it was clear that I think that the
best
way to find out the doctor acceptsmedicare
assignment is to go on the physician tool finder atmedicare
.gov you know calling the doctor's office you never know who you're going to speak to and if they really know what you're talking about when you sayMedicare
assignment you obviously don't want to wait and see if you get a bill because that's too late and then callingMedicare
that might besomething you could do but then again you're on the phone you're waiting to speak to someone and it's just not as quick as actually getting on the computer and looking up yourself so in this particular case I would say C is probably your
best
bet so how did you do on the quiz I'd love to know in the comment section below and if you like this video press the like button share it with your friends and subscribe and if you'd love to learn more aboutMedicare
and how to make itless confusing sign up for my free
Medicare
eCourse at wwr a medigap comm where you will receive one email a day going over all the different parts ofmedicare
andmedicare
supplement
insurance thanks again for watching and I'll see you next time the short Nick alright I'm going to start all the way over I mean one more really oh my gosh Part A per member that and no that's not what I'm saying oh and subscribe I let go on and on and on just cut it out subscribe to my a channelchannel to that no no no oh my gosh hi hmm I