the five most common and worst complaints about medicare advantage plans and we may make this into
a five-part series because we can certainly come up with more than five number five on the list
free plans aren't really free so every year at the end of the year during medicare open enrollment we
see all these tv commercials with people like joe namath telling you how you can get more benefits
free dental free meals free rides to the doctor and it's important to understand that you need to
look at the small print these ads are targeted to a very small portion of the population where you
have to really be in the low income bracket in order to qualify for any of these benefits that
they describe in these commercials but it does get people to call and then people get sold into these
plants so be very cautious certainly you get what you pay for in health care but understand that
free certainly is generally not free when it comes to medicare advantage plan and if you're new here
i'm keith armbrick founder of medicare on video and i help people across the country make the
right medicare choices and i can absolutely help you as well now in full disclosure i
offer medicare supplement coverage that goes along with original medicare a and b and that is kind of
the opposite of medicare advantage plans and i am not a fan of medicare advantage plans i wouldn't
put you on a medicare advantage plan even if i contracted with them so i choose not to do this
because medicare original with a supplement gives you the freedom to choose any doctor any hospital
anywhere in the country that you want you have all the control you don't have to ask for permission
so that's why i choose to do what i do and that's where i look to help people is make sure that our
health care in the future goes as smoothly as possible with as little out of pocket costs
as possible so we're gonna go through the rest of the complaints about medicare advantage and the
good thing is medicare supplements generally have no complaints so it's hard to find complaints with
a medicare supplement plan if you stay to the end of the video i'm gonna show you how to download
my book medicare made clear for free gives you everything you need to know about medicare and you
can have it today right now for free hope you find it very helpful number four on the list you're
very likely to see a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor in a medicare advantage plan especially
on hmo type plans when you make an appointment at the doctor chances are your appointment is
going to be with a nurse practitioner unless it gets elevated to then you get to see the doctor
so you kind of have to go through some hoops in order to get to the doctor because they generally
tend to be very busy and it limits your ability to really get the information certainly takes
a lot more time on your part so something to understand in a medicare advantage plan as well
number three on the list of worst complaints about medicare advantage plans is benefits costs
and networks of doctors and hospitals can change every year so you may be in a medicare advantage
plan you may be happy with what you pay you may be happy with the doctors that you see and the
hospitals that you have access to but what you don't have control of is at the end of the year
that doctor may leave or that hospital may leave or the advantage plan may terminate them and
then they are no longer accessible to you so you don't have control over who you're able to go see
which hospitals you're able to use you have to use what's in their network in most cases and it just
takes away your control over your own health care so important to understand that one when it comes
to medicare advantage plans as well number two on the list of worst complaints on medicare advantage
plans is high maximum out of pocket costs they they sell these plans as if you're going to have
again a lot of free stuff and a lot of low cost stuff but in reality they generally will have
high out of pocket costs in 2021 the maximum out of pocket for a medicare advantage plan can be as
high as seven thousand five hundred and fifty dollars now keep in mind when you're shopping
if you are going to go into a medicare advantage plan the lower the premium some of them are zero
the higher it is in cost to use so it's more of a pay as you go scenario where original
medicare with a supplement is has a premium on the front end usually around 100 bucks a month
so not too big of a deal but then very low out of pocket costs when you actually use it
and again gives you the freedom of choice on original medicare to go to any doctor any hospital
that you want and and know your costs ahead of time so you don't have any real surprises so
important to understand that things can change with a medicare advantage plan
during the year and you're locked in for an entire year so you want to make sure at the
end of the year you know exactly what changes have come and if you need to make any changes yourself
and the number one worst complaint about medicare advantage plans
they generally will make you get a referral and that is by far the biggest complaint on
a medicare advantage plan is if you're in a plan which is an hmo type plan where you have to get a
referral in order to go to see a specialist a lot of times you have to let's say you want to go see
a cardiologist you have to go to a primary care first and get a referral to go to the cardiologist
now a lot of times like we mentioned before in another complaint you might have to see a nurse
practitioner before you see the primary before you get the referral to go to the specialist so
it can be a crazy process and certainly can add a tremendous amount of time especially these days
where appointments you know can be a couple weeks down the road so if you have to do one appointment
before you can schedule another appointment it may take a tremendous amount of time before you get to
where you really need to go so super important to understand any medicare advantage plan
whether or not you need a referral so i hope you found this helpful and it's kind of crazy and you
know it's not great talking about complaints but it is a different world between medicare advantage
and original medicare with medicare supplements so i'd be happy to help i'd be happy to discuss
it with anybody if you have any comments on that put them right below the video whether you
like a medicare advantage or if you've had a bad experience with a medicare advantage let me know
down below because it's helpful for everybody to understand that i'm gonna show you how to download
my book right now hope you found this helpful 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