Blogs
- Open Enrollment 2023 FAQ
- Get Ready! Medicare Open Enrollment Begins October 15th
- Ten Shocking Medicare Stats
- Minimize Home Care Costs with Medicare
- 4 Ways to Make Your Home Safer for Loved Ones with Alzheimer’s Disease
- 7 Million Californians to Benefit from State-Run Retirement Plan
- 5 Ways to Get the Most from Medicare
- How to Spot Medicare Open Enrollment Scams
- 200,000 Doctors are Turning Away New Medicare Patients
- Doctors Warn Patients About Upcoming Medicare Changes
- The Mystery of Medicare
- Medicare Cost Plans vs. Medicare Advantage
- Shopping for Medicare Last Minute
- 5 Reasons to Switch Your Medicare Advantage Plan
- Medicare Help: Get Help Choosing a Hospital
- What do Medicare drug plans cover?
- How Medicare Online Works for Medicare Beneficiaries
- Medicare Part A Costs
- When to buy Medigap Insurance
- The Latest in the Battle for Prescription Drug Coverage
- Don’t Miss These Medicare Deadlines
- 4 Tips for Protecting Your Retirement Savings
- Medicare Open Enrollment Starts Soon
- The Ultimate Retirement Checklist
- Health Care to Cost $10K Per Person
- 8 Things Seniors Should Know About Hospice Care
- Do seniors know enough about their Medicare choices?
- Retirement Plans You Might Regret
- Medicare Penalized for Being Too Careful
- Paul Ryan’s Plan to Make Medicare a Voucher Program
- Thrown Away: $3 Billion in Cancer Drug Spending Wasted
- How Seniors are Winning with Home Care
- Medicare Facts - Are Injections Better Than Eye Drops for Addressing Cataracts
- 3 Things You Don’t Know About Medicare But Should
- Americans Want Medicare to Cover Obesity Treatments
- Best Places to Retire with Affordable Healthcare
- Medicare to Test New Drug Pricing for Doctors and Hospitals
- Retirement – 5 Websites Made for Retirees
- Medicare Home Health Agencies
- Medicare Part B Costs And Coverage 2016
- Medicare Advantage is Changing in 2016 – Are you Ready?
- Choosing a Home Health Agency
- Medicare Part D Costs and Coverage 2016
- DIY Guide to Medicare Shopping
- Should Medicare Cover Genetic Sequencing?
- CMS Bars Cigna from Enrolling New Medicare Members
- Is Medicare for All an Achievable Goal?
- Trump – Medicare Should Negotiate Drug Prices
- A Guide to Medicare Part A
- 5 Things You Didnt Know About Medicare
- Medicare News: A Look Back at Medicare Changes in 2015
- Hospital Prices Vary Across U.S.
- Five Ways You’re Wasting Your Retirement Money
- Government Targeting Remaining Uninsured
- Retirement Benefits Set to Change in 2015
- Medicare Costs: These 5 Screenings will Help You Keep Medicare Costs Down
- Medicare Spending: New way to explore Medicare prescription-drug spending
- Infections & Mistakes - Medicare Penalizes South Florida Hospitals
- Three Changes Coming to Medicare in 2016
- Quit Smoking with Help From Medicare
- Get Your Free Flu Shot Before It is Too Late
- Antibiotic Use: When Not to Take Antibiotics
- Medicare Premium Costs Are Not Going to Spike For Now
- A Migraine even without throbbing pain is a migraine
- Deciding on your best options according to your circumstances and needs
- Medicare Advantage Plans (Under part C)
- Medicare Prescription Drug plans (Part D)
- The things that Medicare doesn’t take care of
- Nurture your body by drinking plenty of water
- Avoid paying more for prescription drug coverage
- Dear Coffee lovers, Caffeine may actually be beneficial for you
- How does one select a primary care provider for oneself or a loved one?
- Know how traveling affects your Medicare plans
- Have Medicare costs been worrying you? The good news is, you may qualify for financial hel
- What should be done if I want to make a transition from Health Marketplace to Medicare
- The drawbacks of Medicare Advantage
- Can Medicare Advantage provide quality, savings, satisfaction and access- all together?
- Refining Medicare Advantage
- What are my expectations from a Medicare program?
- Medicare Additional/Supplemental Insurance Plans
- Working towards better American Health care- Medicare Advantage
- Managing out-of-pocket costs and paying for Medicare
- The basics of medicare and how it works
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Medicare Cost Plans vs. Medicare Advantage
What’s the difference between Medicare Advantage and Medicare Cost Plans?
Medicare Cost Plans may be available to you depending on where you live. Medicare Cost plans may offer you the flexibility of traditional Medicare benefits, while providing you with access to out-of-network health care providers. Visiting out-of-network health care providers could cost you heavily under Medicare Advantage plans.
“The key difference between Medicare Cost plans and other types of Medicare plans is that enrollees are not restricted to the plan’s network providers. They can go outside the network to receive Medicare-covered services,” according to David Lipschutz, senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit in the District of Columbia.
Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people aged 65 and older, and in some cases people with disabilities. Medicare Part A is known as hospital insurance, while Medicare Part B covers doctor services. Medicare Advantage plans are also known as Medicare Part C. Medicare Advantage is offered by private companies, which effects what you pay in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. Medicare Part D is prescription drug coverage, and dictates what you pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs.
In specific parts of the country, those eligible for Medicare have the option to enroll in Medicare Cost plans offered by private insurers. Unlike Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare Cost plan beneficiaries can maintain their traditional Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B coverage.
Medicare Cost plans acts as an insurance hybrid between health maintenance organizations, which restrict those enrolled in health care plans to a network of providers, and preferred provider organizations that have a broader network of doctors. “Medicare Cost plans are essentially an HMO with the option to opt out of the limited network and see any doctor using traditional fee-for-service Medicare,” says Gerald Kominski, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of California – Los Angeles.
Some Medicare Cost Plans include prescription drug coverage, or Medicare Part D. If yours does not, you would need to purchase stand-alone drug coverage. If you do decide to go with an out-of-network health care professional, you would pay the Medicare Part A and Part B coinsurance and deductible payments. As an added bonus, people with Medicare Cost plans can choose to return to traditional Medicare at any time, even outside of the Medicare open enrollment period. You can pay heavily for missing Medicare enrollment deadlines.
In 2014, a total of 471,211 Americans in 15 states and D.C. had Medicare Cost Plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s much lower than the 15.7 million Americans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. Minnesota had the nation’s largest concentration of people with Medicare Cost plans, with an estimated 289,000 of the states 836,000 Medicare beneficiaries having Medicare Cost plans. Use our free Medicare quote form to see if you qualify for Medicare Cost plans.