@jym626, you asked: Can I use HSA money to pay for a Medicare Supplemental policy? No, you can’t … but what you can do is save all of your medical bills that were not reimbursed with your HSA. You can actually withdraw from your HSA to reimburse yourself at any point in the future, as long as you were eligible to have been reimbursed at the time of the bill (and did not deduct the amount as a medical expense on your taxes). You have to retain the receipts, of course. We don’t use our HSA money, and I have a pile of receipts saved for down the road … just in case.
I’m finding it very easy to track claims & eobs from the Medicare.gov interface. I don’t really deal with paper – but I think from what I am seeing is that Medicare produces one document when the claim is first processed and then a different, summary document later on that has all the claims processed within a given period.
Same deal with my supplement – they’ve got an online portal and I can easily check and review claim status there. Because I have an F plan, the process is very simply - Medicare processes the claim and there is a statement that indicates the patient share (“you may be billled”) – and then the supplement pays whatever that amount is, exactly. (Because they have to – they simply have no discretion to do anything else with an F plan – it could be a little more confusing with some of the other letter plans, because then the specific type of claim would be a factor).
It does take a little longer for all of this to process than I was used to back when I had private insurance — then my claims would usually be processed within about a week after I had received the service, but the insurance was always denying stuff it was supposed to cover, so there was a multistep process – first I’d wait for the claim, then I’d ask the company to review it, then it would get paid. Now it seems to be about 3 weeks for medicare to process, and then about another 3-4 weeks for the supplement to process.
With medicare it is sometimes difficult to sort out the difference between what they approve and what they actually pay out to the provider – but in any case with the combination of medicare + supplement – I pay -0-.
I am tracking this all on a spreadsheet – so far in 2019 my medical providers have billed around $3600, Medicare has allowed $2500, Medicare has paid out $1200 – and my share has been around $250, which my supplement has paid. Also Medicare is sending me a $36 check in the mail to reimburse me for out-of-pocket to a chiropractor.
And there is a mysterious (to me) hole between what Medicare “allows” and what it pays the provider sometimes, but I am not required to pay. I had a DEXA scan and Medicare allowed $700 but only paid $160 (my share was -0-) Same deal with Mammogram - Medicare allowed $600 but only paid $160. I think those things were billed under Part A rather than Part B – so basically there’s a gap of about $980 that apparently is simply written off somewhere, but I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a radiology thing.
Anyway, the point is that I’m not having any problems or need to run down these billings. The only reason I’m tracking right now is that I’m new to Medicare so I’m trying to develop a good sense of how it all works – but I’d be just fine if I never checked on it. I show my Medicare card to the providers, and then Medicare takes care of the rest.
@kelsmom- our HSA gives us a credit card which I use for any dental and eye/eyeglass expenses beyond our flex benefits and for any insurance copays. It seems if DH takes cobra down the road we can pay for it with HSA money, and when I go on Medicare B I can reimburse myself for the premiums .
Problem with Medicare advantage is that doesn’t always move from state to state. I have some older relative on it in SC and several large medical groups stopped taking it. The retirement home where my parents live advise residents against it since at least one resident coming from another state has had problems finding doctors that take it… so seems very state specific.
The continuing education division of our community college offers a short course on “Health Insurance in Retirement” taught by an insurance professional. Yes it helps him drum up business (probably including mine next year when I need to make these decisions), but boy was it helpful for me to start clarifying what I will have to think about. Good news so far is that as long as DH keeps his job, I will have “creditable coverage” and can stay on his plans.
Great thread - thanks for all the helpful information!
Our county SHIP has a 3-5 business day backlog of calls (not surprising during open enrollment), so I poked around today for other reliable sources of information and found this group: https://www.medicarerights.org/
It’s a nonprofit consumer service organization. I was very favorably impressed by the website and the hotline volunteer I spoke with. He took as much time as I needed to assist me with a somewhat unusual question, and emailed me a detailed booklet about Medigap plans in my state.