Retirement Healthcare and Medicare
Retirement expert Bob Carlson’s research and knowledge on how to get the most out of healthcare options
Found 311 Articles.
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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 […]
Why Medical Providers Hate Medicare
I hear regularly from readers that it is difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to find new doctors or make nonemergency appointments. The reason is the way Medicare treats medical providers. Doctors are part of the story. Their reimbursements have been reduced over the years, though there’s an annual budget maneuver to prevent the reimbursements from declining […]
More About Medicare and Obamacare
Full implementation still awaits the beginning of 2014, but researchers are finding clear trends in medical delivery and pricing as we prepare for Obamacare. The reports are springing up now, because we hit the third anniversary of enactment of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. A key trend identified is a medical provider shortage, especially […]
Medicare Advantage Cuts, Round Two
Members of Medicare Advantage plans can expect a new round of premium increases or reduced benefits or both. The plans are very popular with their beneficiaries, and they’ve been growing as a percentage of the Medicare population. But the current administration in Washington doesn’t like them at all. Money put into the plans was reduced […]
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Get Ready for Medicare Rationing, Restrictions
Paying for medical care promises to gobble much greater shares of federal and state government budgets. Medicare will come to dominate the federal budget. But what’s the cause of the rise? Many discussions would have you believe that rising prices or high medical inflation are the cause. That would lead to a conclusion that we […]
More Changes Coming to Medicare
Medicare beneficiaries have been through a series of changes in recent years, and more changes are coming next year.The changes aren’t all positive, so they were released quietly last Friday. The good news are in the Part D Prescription Drug program. The deductible is being decreased to $310 for 2014. That’s a 4.6% decline. The […]
Paying for Long-Term Care
There are a lot of different kinds of long-term care and different ways of paying for it. Many people simply don’t understand how high the potential cost is or the different ways of planning to pay for it. This slideshow from Bloomberg does a good job of running through the different care options, how much […]
Managing Changes in Long-Term Care Insurance
Changes have roiled the long-term care insurance market the last couple of years. The latest big changes came from the leading LTCI insurer, Genworth. The good news is that unlike other insurers, it plans to stay in the market. Genworth eliminated unlimited lifetime benefits as a policy option and also the choice to fully pay […]
