rgatijnet1 wrote:
If you are on Medicare, they have supplement plans that will cover your non-emergency healthcare in every State. Obviously these cost more.
In an emergency, Medicare will cover you in every State.
traditional medicare covers you in every state regardless if it's an emergency or not, provided the medical provider accepts medicare patients. depending on the particular plan, a medicare supplement will pickup some/most/all of the portion of the medical expenses that medicare doesn't cover. and most drugs aren't covered by medicare or the supplement plan but you can pick up a separate Part D plan that will cover drugs. for example I have a Plan F medicare supplement and haven't paid any additional out-of-pocket $ over the past year.
when you become eligible for medicare at 65-yoa you'll have a choice between traditional medicare (Parts A & B), adding a supplement and a Part D plan (both optional) OR a medicare advantage plan. medicare advantage is Parts A, B, D and the supplement rolled into a single plan. with traditional medicare you get to choose your doctors (providing they accept medicare patients) and no referrals are required. a medicare advantage plan works more like an HMO. you'll have a primary care doc who will give you referrals to see specialists. this is an either/or decision...traditional medicare or medicare advantage.
when I was faced with that choice I learned that the medicare advantage plan from the company I had decided on required a 2-week advance notice if we left our primary coverage area and an additional 2-week notice if we continued to move. we're in our MH 6-months a year and often just amble from one area to the other without a whole lot of planning. providing 2-weeks notice was just not gonna work. so I chose traditional medicare with a PLan F supplement and a Part D plan.
if you're not eligible for medicare then you may have a problem. before I was forced to switch to medicare my traditional insurance covered me in my home state. when we were out of state it was a case-by-case situation.
