With Medicare’s many separate parts, optional coverage and addendums, it can be difficult to keep up with it or even to sort through what it offers to find something that works well for you. Here, we will break down Medicare 2018 into its separate parts to make it easier to understand and make it simple for you to pick out just the coverage you need.
Medicare Parts A and B
Medicare’s basic plan is generally considered to consist of parts A and B. Part A is really all that comes with the core plan, while Part B is optional. For most people, it doesn’t seem very optional, as it covers very common and essential medical expenses. Let’s take a closer look at what these two parts cover exactly.
Part A will cover you for a lot of your hospital-related costs. That’s hospice care, nursing services and even some of your home healthcare coasts. It should be noted, that it won’t cover any doctor’s services.
Those are covered, to some extent, by Medicare Part B. This part of the coverage plan takes care of many of the medical tests of the procedures that you would need while in the hospital. That’s x-rays, blood tests, medical scans and more. It also covers you for some doctor’s services and some home health care.
Parts A and B, as well as part D, are sold by Medicare. Medicare sets its own rates, and they will vary based on your income bracket. The more money you make, the more you pay for the same coverage.
Supplemental Coverage
Now there are a lot of medical expenses that these parts of Medicare don’t cover. We haven’t covered drug costs or the many deductibles and co-payments that the basic Medicare plan leaves you to pay on your own. Medicare Part D takes care of many prescription drug costs. It won’t cover everything, but this entirely optional part of Medicare can be useful for people who need multiple medications.
Medicare’s supplement plans are often call Medigap. These include ten varied plans, and they all have different benefits. They cover what are known as supplemental costs. That can include more hospice care coverage, more nursing care coverage, more blood every year, deductibles, copayments, excess charges and emergency medical care given to you outside the United States.
They cover these expenses in varying amounts. The lower-coverage plans may cover only portions of most supplementary expenses, while the higher-coverage plans can cover every supplemental charge in full.
These supplemental plans are sold by private insurance companies, which really sets them apart from Medicare parts A, B and D. Those insurance companies choose the rates they want to charge, and those rates vary from company to company and from state to state.
