Medicare Junk Mail Is Driving Me Crazy!

Also, the never ending phone calls.

I've been getting both mail and phone calls. I told the woman that I'm not even old enough to apply for Medicare, though I wish I could because I'd then quit my job and retire! (She quickly hung up after that.)

I'm only in my 40s and they keep sending them to me. And, as far as commercials, Joe Namath can go fuck himself. Why is it always old Repug white men shilling these scams? Yeah, Tom Selleck, get the banks some extra money by having old people reverse mortgage themselves out of their homes if they get sick. Bunch of fuckers.

The big takeaway is that the INSURANCE companies CAN offer dental and hearing assistance, but regular Medicare cannot. My advantage program is owned by United Health Care. United Health Care owns Optum Medical, which own Southwest Medical Associates. I have been going to SMA for decades. Now, it is a totally vertically integrated health care system FOR PROFIT.

The government could do it no worse without the senseless layers of corporate bureaucracy.

The biggest lie these ads tell is when they say that their Medicare AP offers ALL the same benefits as traditional Medicare and then some. What they're not telling is that the AP companies are 'for profit' companies and set their own rate of reimbursement. Where traditional Medicare will pay 80%, an AP may pay a much lower reimbursement on a particular treatment or procedure. That's how they make their money. If you're relatively healthy then an AP may work fine for you. But once you get old enough and start having lots more medical issues that's when you'll find you're having to pay out of pocket far more than if you had traditional Medicare even if you don't have a Medigap supplement.

Anyone who believes they're going to just give you dental, eyecare, and hearing care at no additional charge is sadly mistaken. They'll get that money back from you at some point.

I've found a way to get around the Advantage Plan and all other spam phone calls. I simply do not answer my phone if I do not recognize the number. If the caller doesn't leave a message then as far as I'm concerned it wasn't worth me answering in the first place. And spam caller will never leave a message because it's not a human being dialing your number waiting for you to pick up. It's a computer dialing the number and as soon as someone picks up on the other end it transfers the call to one of their call center desks. That's why when you answer a spam call there's always a short period of silence after you say "hello". If no one answers or your answer machine picks up the computer just ends the call and moves on to the next patsy.

Add to that the neverending TV ads. Mostly on daytime airings. It's added to the now 7-8 commercials per break. At night it's wall to wall automobile ads and Spectrum ads.

I've also been told that doctors who participate in these AP programs must do everything they can to reduce the costs to the plan which includes reducing referrals to specialists if at all possible. If they don't the plan will just kick them out.

You want to know one of the worst parts? If you sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan when you start Medicare instead of signing up for the really good Medigap plans you are forever unable to sign up for a Medigap plan. Forever. You have six months after you are eligible for Medicare to sign up for Medigap plans and, after that, you're out of luck. So, the people who are only signing up for Medicare Advantage plans and then realize that it's just like the usual insurance schemes where you have to shop around every year and find a doctor that will take it and on and on. As you get older and older, they can literally raise your costs so high that you'll end up with no insurance beyond basic Medicare which will really hit you once you get to the point where you need nursing care or to go to a rehab for a length of time.

Medigap coverage is strictly regulated by the government. Medicare Advantage plans are regulated by insurance companies. And, most people have no idea about any of this. I had to get this coverage very quickly for my parents when illness forced them to retire in short succession. If I hadn't done my due diligence, which took a lot of work to understand all of this nuance, they could have fallen for the high pressure sales tactics of Medicare Advantage assholes and missed out on their opportunity to get a Medigap plan for the rest of their lives. It's ridiculous.

Right now on TV it's either Medicare Advantage Plan commercials or that scam CarShield car repair outfit's ads.

You can get Medigap coverage if you don't do it within the first 6 months, but they'll make you have a physical and they'll look for any tiny little thing to either deny you coverage or charge you a much higher premium.

What’s the deal with Medigap if you don’t take part B right away because of your spouse’s health insurance?

Did you take part A? I would think if you're taking Medicare part A then you would be bound to the 6 month initial period. If you're not on Medicare at all I don't believe you can purchase a Medigap policy.

My wife is taking A because that’s free. My insurance is good and overall less expensive than her taking B and having the funds deducted from SS.

Now I am wondering if we messed up not signing up for medigap. We both have good long term care insurance if that is the primary concern.

The best thing for you to do is to call Medicare. The whole system is so detailed I think only they will know if your wife can or can't get a Medigap policy. Obviously you can't because you're not on Medicare.

I am not sure why it is the mail that is driving you crazy OP, if they are going to try to contact me, mail is the best way for me, it just goes in the trash, I don't even open it. Now the phone calls and the commercials are what drive me crazy. To be honest I don't know if any of the phone calls are about Medicare because I don't answer if I don't recognize the number but the mail is much easier to ignore.

[quote] Right now on TV it's either Medicare Advantage Plan commercials or that scam CarShield car repair outfit's ads.

That's strange, because on the small set of channels I routinely watch, the Medicare open enrollment ads this year have been mercifully few. Last year I remember constantly diving for the remote to hit mute or FF.

Most obnoxious among the ads was one on peak rotation, where the spokesperson repeatedly and emphatically mispronounced the phrase "Call 8 hundred" as "Call 8 hunred". Maddening. I later learned this is done very intentionally to draw attention and make memorable an ad, no matter how irritating.

I had to deal with the deaths of three people (two relatives and a friend) over the past 10 years, and I still get advertisements in the mail for all three of them. I am paperless for just about everything, so 90% of my mail is junk or magazines.

Anyway, I have health coverage through my former employer for life, so I elected not to sign up for Part B; therefore all of these ads are useless to me since there's no way I can get Medicare Advantage or Medigap policies (or Part D, since my coverage includes prescriptions.) When I turned 65 there weren't a lot of options like they have now which will reimburse all or part of your Part B premiums if you sign up with a Medicare Advantage plan, but even if there had been, I probably would have opted out since with means testing, my Part B premiums would probably be well over $300/mo. (My regular HMO is less than that.) The only benefit I could see in signing up for part B would be lower co-pays, but they're pretty low already. Oh, and it would be better if I wanted to go out of network, I guess.

Just checked my Informed Delivery for today and I'm getting 2 more AP mailers. Got 3 yesterday. Some companies send me multiple mailers a week. With at least 2 of them I must on their mailing list twice because I'll routinely get 2 identical mailers on the same day. I'd hate to think the amount of money these companies spend on mailings. And they've got to get that money back somehow.