The 2 Types of Medicare

All About the Two Types of Medicare

In today’s blog post, we’re going to talk about the two options you have when you get on Medicare—these are original Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

Medicare provides you two kinds of plan to choose from before turning 65. You could either pick the original Medicare where you go to a doctor’s office and hand your Medicare card after. That Medicare card will pay 80% and you’d have to pay 20% and any of the deductibles.

All About Premiums

Now, if you added a Medicare supplement to that, it’ll pick up pretty much all the deductibles depending on the plan. But once again, you’re paying a premium for plan.

For example, every state in different counties have different premiums depending on a number of factors. It could be based whether you’re male or female, smoker or nonsmoker, and what zip code you live in. There are a number of other things that are considered based on what your company’s criteria are.

So if you pick original Medicare and you added the Medicare supplement option it’s probably going to cost you around $180 a month let’s say in north central Florida. You’re going to have to purchase what’s called a Part D which adds another $40 or $50 a month. The resulting total would be over $200 a month.

Then when you go to a doctor’s office, in most cases, depending on what kind of supplement you picked, you won’t have to pay any copayments or deductibles.

Medicare Advantage Plan

Now, option number two is to get on what’s called a Medicare Advantage plan. It’s also called Part C. It can be an HMO, PPO, a private fee for service, and several other things. But with the said plan, for example, we’re usually talking HMO.

Medicare is going to have prepaid on whatever company you join and will base the member per month depending on where you live or on a number of health factors.

For instance, in central Florida, that number is $800 per member per month. Maybe in south Florida, the number might be $1200 or $1400 per member per month. It’s going to be different every area. So those are just some example numbers. So Medicare is prepaying you to use whatever company you choose.

You’re not going to be allowed to use your original Medicare card like in the first example for original Medicare. This time you’re going to show the card to the plan you joined and that plan may actually have a zero premium. It could have a small premium depending on which choices you make.

That’s why you need to come to someone like me—an independent advisor who could talk about all the different plans that are fit for your needs.

If you go the Medicare advantage route or the part c route, it could be an HMO, PPO or the other things I previously mentioned. Let’s say you chose the option that has zero premium. It might be zero premium but you’re going to make some kind of copayments.

Depending on the plan, this can be copayments for all the different things you have. They might have a maximum out of pocket limit and things like that.

Pros and Cons of Both

So on one way, you have total freedom with the original Medicare although you’re paying a monthly premium as well as a premium for a drug plan. But the good thing about it is that you can pretty much go anywhere you want.

If they accept Medicare, Medicare is going to pay 80 and the supplement that you chose is going to pay the 20. If you pick up a Part D plan and go along with that supplement, you’re going to have certain copays on it which we’ll talk about that in another podcast.

If you go the Medicare advantage route, Medicare’s prepayments, companies that take care of you and whatever the copays are for those plans, those are the cost paid you’re going to have to pay.

There will also be a maximum out of pocket tied to those that’s why you really need someone to discuss all these things with you because these things aren’t as simple as it used to be 20 years ago. I started this and around 1989 or 1990 and as of this recording, it’s 2019.

To get more info, you can explore more of my site, MedicareMark.com or watch more of my videos. You can also make comments at the bottom of the podcast. That way, I can answer any questions that you need help with!