Retirement Healthcare and Medicare
Retirement expert Bob Carlson’s research and knowledge on how to get the most out of healthcare options
Found 310 Articles.
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Behind the Medicare Numbers
Each year the trustees of Social Security and Medicare issue a report. The main focus of the report is the financial condition of the “trust funds.” In recent years one of the public trustees, Charles Blahous, wrote his own summaries of the annual reports with an emphasis on the points he believes are important. Not […]
Exploding Myths About Long-Term Care
Americans are remarkably uninformed and misinformed about long-term health care and insurance to cover the expense. Only one question was answered correctly by a majority of respondents in a recent survey: 53% said they were not too familiar with long-term care insurance (LTCI) and another 26% said they were not at all familiar with it. […]
Estimating Retirement Medical Spending
Medical expenses are the wild card in all retirement plans. They are very difficult to estimate and control. Fidelity Investments has been putting out an annual estimate of retirement medical spending for several years. The good news in this year’s estimate is that the total retirement cost estimate is reduced, because medical spending increased at […]
Evaluating Combination Long-Term Care Policies
Most people say their biggest fear in retirement is a need for long-term care that exhausts their savings. Yet, most people don’t have long-term care insurance. The biggest reasons given for not having LTCI is that it’s expensive and people are concerned about paying all the premiums and never claiming benefits. In response, insurers created […]
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Medicare’s Dumping a Program That Works
Though the federal government’s various medical payment programs are regimented and uniform, they do allow various pilot or test programs. The pilot programs start small and sometimes expand when they really work. Yet, here’s a report that Medicare is phasing out a pilot program that has fantastic results. The program is directed at people with […]
Medicare Advantage Not Out of the Woods
I recently reported on the flip-flop the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services made on the Medicare Advantage plans. Initially the CMS said it would substantially reduce reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage providers. After public protests, CMS reversed policy. But that doesn’t mean the Medicare Advantage plans are out of danger. President Obama and most […]
Sequester Leads to Medicare Reductions
Suppose you or a loved one has cancer and needs chemotherapy. But this week you’re told by the doctor or hospital that’s been administering the drugs that they can’t do it any longer. You’ll have to look elsewhere for treatment. That’s happening all over the country, according to The Washington Post. It’s all due to […]
Reversing Course on Medicare Advantage Plans
Recently we reported that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid changed their rules on reimbursing insurers for Medicare Advantage. By tweaking the formula, they reduced planned reimbursements by about 2.3%. That didn’t last long. The CMS reversed course after a few days and apparently turned the cuts into a reimbursement increase. Though not everyone agrees […]
