Some things you should know about Advantage Plans.
They say the devil is in the details and that's true when it comes to the hidden costs in Advantage Plans. You have to look closely at the actual policy to see how it really works. Co-pays for specialists, the hospital, the ER, or the ambulance can add up fast. Truth is, you could be asked to pay 20% of the bill for things like durable medical equipment.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare recently confirmed that Advantage Plans shift significantly more costs of major illnesses to beneficiaries. According to the NCPSSM, all Advantage Plans are required to cover everything that Medicare covers, but they do not have to cover every benefit in the same way. For example, private plans may create financial barriers to care by imposing higher cost-sharing requirements for benefits such as home health services, hospitalization, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient mental health services, and durable medical equipment that protect the sickest and most vulnerable beneficiaries. In many cases, beneficiaries are lured into the private plans based on improved coverage of relatively inexpensive services such as expanded dental or vision care, only to discover after it is too late, that their plans shift significantly more of the higher costs of major illnesses onto their shoulders. Preventing private plans from imposing greater cost-sharing requirements than traditional Medicare would better protect beneficiaries from high out-of-pocket costs.