Medicare & Health Coverage

Eleanor’s son assumed Medicare would pay for someone to be with her every day after her hip surgery. It doesn’t work that way, and the gap has a real dollar cost.

A family assumes a hospice doctor’s six-month certification is a deadline, then watches their mother get recertified for over a year while paying almost nothing out of pocket.

A son learns that his mother’s rehab coverage can end on day 19, not day 100, and that the reason has nothing to do with running out of covered days.

The old Part D “donut hole” is gone. In its place is a hard $2,100 annual limit on what you pay for covered drugs, plus a new option to spread that cost into monthly bills.

Someone who waits two full years past their Medicare enrollment window ends up paying $243.50 a month instead of $202.90, a penalty that never goes away.

A job change, a move, or a shift in Medicaid status can open a Medicare enrollment window months before the standard fall dates ever arrive.

Dorothy assumed her free yearly check-up was a full physical. It isn’t, and the gap between the two caused a bill she didn’t expect.

Robert assumed he could add a Medigap policy whenever he got around to it. His six-month window doesn’t work that way.

Bill’s Medicare Part B premium jumped to $527 a month this year, based on income he no longer earns. A specific form exists for exactly his situation.

A retiree paying $185 a month for Medicare Part B may be able to eliminate that premium entirely through a program most people have never heard of.