subject: Medicare supplement benefits for better Medicare coverage [print this page] It is a commonly known fact that the Original Medicare plans does not cover all the medical costs you may need to pay and therefore these costs should be paid from your own pocket. Now the fact is that to some people it may sometime become a real matter of headache at the moment for a lot of people. For this very reason there are the Medicare supplement plans available, which in other terms are also known as the Medigap policies. In fact the main point is that in the Original Medicare policies there always remains some gap as the Medicare never claims to cover up all the medical costs payable. Therefore to bridge this gap these are the best Medicare Supplement Insurance or the Medigap plans are the most useful help one can get. Besides that it is also important to note in this respect that the Medigap plans are only supplementary plans to the original Medicare and therefore cannot be sold independently.
Besides that there are also some other things that should also be kept in mind in respect of using the benefits of the Medicare supplement plans. Among these the most primary fact is that to get enrolled to the Medicare supplement plans an individual must be first of all be a beneficiary of the Original Medicare Part A and B. This is the basic requirement of being enrolled to the Medigap plans. On the other hand it is also important to note that if anyone switches over to any other plan other than the original Medicare he or she cannot use the benefits of these plans unless he or she switches back to the original Medicare.
The main benefit of the Medicare supplement Insurance plans as mentioned above is to cover up the gap left behind by the Original Medicare plans but along with that some of these plans also provide some extra benefits which are not enlisted in the coverage of the original Medicare. The Medigap offerings or the Medicare supplement plans were standardized by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in 1992. since then there had been 12 standard Medicare supplement plans named A through L. These plans have been put under the administration of the private health insurance companies and are also sold by these companies only. In 2006 it had been clearly stated that the Medigap Plans H, I, and J, cannot be sold to people with prescription to drug benefits, although there is a relaxation of this rule for those who already own these plans prior to that.
However it should always be kept in mind that though the Medicare Supplement Insurance Plans can only be sold by the private insurance companies only and are under their administration still no single company possess the power to bring in any changes in the standard plans. Therefore if you want to purchase a Medicare supplement plan from any company, you can rest assured of the fact that you will get the same benefits as being mentioned by the standardization rules. But in this context it should also be kept in mind that the premium rates for these plans may differ from company to company.
Medicare supplement benefits for better Medicare coverage
By: William Richards
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