starting medicare can be unbelievably confusing and i hear it every day on how complicated things
seem to be to try and figure out exactly what it is you need to do whether you're turning 65 or
you're about to retire you're going to come into medicare you need to make all these choices and
all these decisions and it can drive you crazy so i'm here to help with all that i'm going to
make it as easy as possible the first thing that we need to understand is your medicare
coverage choices and it's really important because there's a huge difference there's really one road
to go down or another road to go down and they go to different places so we need to make sure
we understand exactly what we're doing so we don't mess it up if you're new here i'm keith armbrecht
i'm founder of medicare on video i help people across the country make the right medicare choices
i can absolutely help you as well there's no cost to use me to help you if you stay to the end of my
video i'm going to show you how to download a copy of my book medicare made clear absolutely free no
strings attached it's yours to use i have a lot of information in there and i'll show you right at
the end of the video how to get it right now for free right now we're going to talk about medicare
coverage choices so when you come into medicare what do you do so your first choice is do you stay
with original medicare or do you choose a medicare advantage plan you've probably heard medicare
advantage somewhere along the way because all those tv commercials primarily talk about medicare
advantage whether it's joe namath or jimmy walker whoever may be hawking medicare advantage plans
and that should kind of raise a red flag for you right there on how hard they push and sell
these plans and i'm going to explain the difference exactly right now and i'll tell you why
i do not recommend a medicare advantage plan and full disclosure i offer medicare supplement plans
that go along with original medicare i do not offer medicare advantage plans by choice because
something i would not go on i would not join a medicare advantage plan i would not put my parents
on a medicare advantage plan and i would be uncomfortable putting you on a medicare advantage
plan i'm going to tell you exactly why but right now we're going to figure out the difference
between the two what makes them different so you have original medicare
and understand if you stay with original medicare which is medicare part a medicare
part b you will almost certainly get a medicare supplement plan that covers what a and b do not
you will almost most certainly get a medicare drug plan that covers your prescription drugs because
original medicare does not cover prescription drugs so when we bundle all that stuff together
it's still low cost and very little out of pocket i'm going to show you specifically what i'm
talking about so what i'm going to do right now is we're going to go to medicare.gov and show you how
they explain the difference between the two and then we'll kind of get the real picture
on somebody that's been around it for a long time so when you go into medicare.gov and i'll put the
link below this video in their blog section they have on comparing the choices coming into
medicare so the first section they talk about is cost so what are the costs between the two types
of original medicare or a medicare advantage plan and how they define it on original medicare
it shows you will pay the medicare part b premium and that part b premium right now is about 150
bucks a month so it's it's certainly a premium but it's not an outrageous premium but that's a
whole different story on whether you find the need for that it also shows that you're responsible for
any co-payments co-insurance and deductibles just like on any health insurance and it says
there's no limit to how much out of pocket you can pay but you can buy a medicare supplement plan
that will limit the out-of-pocket so with original medicare let's break it down a little easier so
you got about that 150 a month medicare part b premium you're going to add a supplement to it
that supplement our goal is to find a supplement plan that's close to about a hundred bucks a month
so we're gonna add a hundred dollars a month for the medicare supplement plan a part d plan
is gonna cost anywhere generally around 20 25 a month depends on the part of the country you're in
depends on the drugs you take but if you add all that up we're going to be less than 300 bucks
for the entire package for original medicare so our entire package for original medicare
is going to be less than 300 a month going forward now the coverage that you'll have is tremendous
it is nearly 100 so you only have generally a very small deductible so generally somewhere
in the neighborhood 200 deductible for the year that's the entire amount for the entire year and
then the plan is going to pick up your expenses after that you may have a plan if we find a
better value that does have 20 copay or a 50 copay something that's pretty easy to manage depends on
the scenario with where you're located and how much we're going to use the plan but anyway
we want to get to where we find the best value but we want to keep it around 100 bucks a month for
that medicare supplement plan so with original medicare a and b supplement plan drug plan
where you have fantastic coverage it's probably going to run about a total of 300 less than 300
a month so that's that's probably better than what you're doing currently certainly the coverage will
be better generally if you're coming off a work plan an employer plan you have a much higher
deductible sometimes two three thousand dollar deductible plus coinsurance plus copays here
a couple hundred bucks and that might be all so pretty good coverage on medicare original
now medicare advantage what they show is you pay the medicare part b premium now that's
confusing to a lot of people a lot of people think you go into a medicare advantage plan
you don't have to pay your part b premium you absolutely need to pay your part b premium so
you still have 150 a month cost right off the bat even if you go into a medicare advantage plan
and then you also are responsible for co-payments co-insurance deductibles and the plan's yearly
maximum so it does have a limit now where there's an issue with the cost a medicare advantage plan
is more of a pay as you go so it's less on the front side generally more on the back side
so where we have original medicare with the whole package supplement and drug plan being less than
300 bucks a month medicare advantage you've got the 150 for your part b so you're still
going to have that some medicare advantage plans have zero premium and they include a drug plan
and they can include some other things like dental and vision but generally it's basic coverage so
it's not anything that's comprehensive but at the end of the day when you use it that's when
your out-of-pocket expense will be with a medicare advantage plan where they certainly have co-pays
and co-insurance and things of that nature they can have a maximum of pocket of up to seventy five
hundred and fifty dollars in 2021 so in other words if you have a bad medical year on original
medicare with a supplement you're going to be out of pocket a couple hundred bucks if you
have a bad medical year on a medicare advantage plan you're likely to be out thousands of
dollars which can certainly turn a bad medical scenario into a bad financial scenario as well so
one of the reasons that i like original better and this is just one of the smaller reasons
is you know what you're going to pay you know how much you're going to be out of pocket if
you have a bad year and it's going to be very low so it's a good comparison on the cost wise
now when we look at the next thing on medicare.gov they talk about coverage so how does the coverage
work between original medicare versus a medicare advantage plan so under original medicare it shows
that covered services and supplies hospitals doctors offices and other health care settings
under part a for the hospital part b for the outside the hospital so there's two different
pieces of original medicare a is stuff that goes on inside the hospital b stuff that goes on
outside the hospital not something you really have to track or figure out but that's just how they do
it and then you'd likely add a drug coverage plan and probably a medicare supplement plan to cover
the gaps in original medicare a medicare advantage plan it says pretty simply that they must cover
all services and supplies that original medicare covers now that may be theoretically true but the
difference between the two with original medicare you don't really need any pre-authorizations you
don't really need permission to do things that you want to do pretty much if it's medically necessary
and your doctor says you need to do this because it's medically necessary that's all you need for
medicare with medicare advantage you may very well need to number one get a referral to go from a
primary care to a specialist number two get pre-authorization if it's something of significant
so in other words ask permission if it's okay they just make you run through a lot more hoops and
generally not what i want to do when i'm seeking health care if i have something going on i don't
want to think about somebody else telling me what i could or couldn't do so i want to be able to go
and do what i want to do and take care of it the way i want to take care of it and that's
where original medicare kind of definitely outweighs on the medicare advantage side
now the next thing that they talk about is choice and this would be the number one reason that i do
not recommend medicare advantage plans and would not be on a medicare advantage plan
and don't sell medicare advantage plans is choice so with original medicare a and b your supplement
your drug plan you can go to any doctor any hospital in the country that takes medicare
period you don't have to ask permission you don't have to see if they're in the network if they
accept medicare you can go and the beautiful thing about a medicare supplement plan they don't make
any decisions either if medicare covers it they have to cover it so if a doctor takes medicare
they have to take your medicare supplement plan there's no issue at the doctor's office on which
company of a medicare supplement they may or may not take they have to take it alongside of
original medicare period so that's exactly how it works and that's what makes it so simple i have
thousands of customers on original medicare with a supplement with a drug plan and literally getting
no customer service phone calls nobody's upset with something that didn't go the way they were
supposed to go and that's exactly what you want in your health care going forward guess what we're
going to get older we're going to need health care at some point we're going to be in the hospital
without a doubt uh and hopefully we'll come out of the hospital without a doubt but we want to
keep it the way that we want to maintain control over what we're going to do medicare advantage
very likely you have to stay within a network of doctors and hospitals so it depends on the
advantage plan you have and some are much smaller and much more localized than others
but generally even on the big ones they're going to have a network of doctors in your area that
you are able to see and that network changes from one year to the next so you may have doctors in it
that you like this year and next year they're gone or the hospital is gone or they have a contract
dispute and they're gone and they're no longer available and that is absolutely the number one
reason that i do not recommend medicare advantage plans because you don't have any control of who
you're gonna go see if you come across something significant if you have a a terminal illness or
cancer or something specialized where you need to go wherever you want to go
you don't have that option with medicare advantage you just you can't say okay can i go
to virginia and see you know or north carolina or duke university or any place like you just
don't have that kind of control and if you travel which hopefully in retirement you're gonna travel
original medicare no problem at all you can go anywhere you want and with a medicare supplement
it even gives you foreign travel coverage where on medicare advantage not at all if you travel
and you have medicare advantage plan it can be very problematic especially if you have a severe
significant scenario outside of your network they generally will cover emergency services
but then what they're going to want to do is make you come back into network so if you're
out of state and you have something go on you may have to come back into network for continued care
on a medicare advantage plan so just to me crazy to have that kind of restriction in your health
care just wouldn't want it under any circumstances so that gives you a pretty good hopefully
idea and again understand i'm a little biased because i don't recommend medicare advantage i
could sell medicare advantage if i wanted to but i don't want to and i don't need to and i prefer to
have happy customers all along the way that's exactly what i have and that's exactly what i
would recommend for you so if you have questions give me a call we're happy to figure it all out
we're happy to talk about the differences i have a small team that's here to help and do
whatever you need year after year to make sure that we're in the right place all along the way so
i hope you found this helpful stay tuned i'm going to tell you how to download my book right now
have a fantastic day thank you for taking the time to watch my video hope you found it helpful
something you will absolutely find helpful if you're coming into medicare or even if
you're already in medicare is download a copy of my book medicare made clear
i've spent a lot of time and a lot of effort on this book and i give it away for free
you'll find that i cover just about every piece of medicare in this book and it's easy to read
and easy to understand i've also put videos throughout the book where i explain everything
to you so if you don't want to read through all the information just watch the videos and i'll
walk you right through everything you need to know about medicare you also find all the links and the
guides that you need now either to sign up or in the future for things that come along so take
just a minute visit medicareonvideo.com forward slash free book you can download it right now
and it's yours to keep i hope you find it helpful have a great day hey don't go anywhere these are
some of my most recent videos right here you can also find the link right below this video to
download my book medicare made clear absolutely free you can also subscribe to my channel right
here so please download my book watch some videos subscribe to the channel have a great day