IBM Medicare one.exchange.com 2016 other enrollment periods

Yesterday was the last day of the Medicare Fall Open Enrollment which is the time to make changes to Medicare health insurance for 2016 coverage.  In addition to this time, some people will be able to modify their choices during 2016.
   

• Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period: January 1 - February 14, 2016

 
If you have a Medicare Advantage insurance plan, you are allowed to disenroll from the plan and use original Medicare during this period of time.  Some people use this option because they did not realize they were automatically enrolled in a new Medicare Advantage plan because their old plan terminated.  They will often realize the change when they go to the doctor in January and are told the doctor does not accept their current plan.  It's possible this might happen to some  IBMers who were automatically enrolled in the individual Aetna plan because the IBM group Aetna plan terminated.
     
Although it is a nice option it can get complicated.  If you had a Medicare Advantage plan that did not include an Rx insurance plan, you cannot switch to a new Rx plan.  If you want to buy a Medicare Supplemental plan to have secondary insurance for original Medicare, the rules governing that purchase are determined by your state.  Finally, if you have something called a Medicare Medical Savings Account plan you cannot switch.  If you are able to switch, original Medicare will be effective the beginning of the next month.
 

• Medicare General Enrollment Period:January 1 - March 31, 2016

 
If you miss the initial sign up window for Medicare after you turned 65 and are not working (which is 3 months before through 3 months after your birthday), then you must wait for the General Enrollment Period (GEP) to sign up unless you can prove you were misinformed by a Medicare employee. There will likely be penalties assigned for every year you did not use Medicare and definitely be penalties for every month you did not buy Rx insurance.  That's irritating all by itself but then add to that your insurance coverage will not begin until July 1st of 2016. The most frequent cause for making this kind of mistake is for people who are over 65 and get laid off.  They buy the COBRA insurance and think they are covered by COBRA (per an earlier post, they really are not covered).  When COBRA ends it is usually after their Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to enroll in Medicare which is 8 months.  At that point, they must wait for the Medicare GEP to enroll.
 

• Unique Special Enrollment Periods: Any time during 2016 if you are eligible

 
As I just described, when you stop working and are over 65 you have 8 months to enroll in Medicare insurance.  There are other ways you are also be eligible for an SEP.  Just to name a few:
 

• If you move from one state to another
• If you have a state pharmaceutical assistance program which includes a one time SEP
• If you go into or come out of a nursing home
• If you can prove marketing fraud for the insurance plan you currently have 

 
Hopefully, none of the above applies and you will have a happy Medicare 2016 year!


 

IBM Medicare OneExchange.com if you STILL have problems ...

I just read new comments by a few blog readers and it appears retirees are still having service problems with OneExchange.  I posted a couple of email addresses a long while ago that might be useful if you get totally fed up and want to contact some IBM executives.  I am putting them in this post to make it easier to find them.

Dr. Rhee at kyurhee@us.ibm.com is in charge of the OneExchange program.  If that doesn't work, try his boss, Barbara Brickmeier as she is the VP of HR programs.  She is at bbrick@us.ibm.com.

IBM OneExchange.com Medicare plan finder for 2016 Open Enrollment and Aetna transition

On Thursday, 10/15/15, the Fall Open Enrollment began for Medicare.  This is the time of year you can change to a different Medicare Advantage plan, original Medicare or a different part D plan. The changes must be made by midnight December 7, 2015 and are effective January 1, 2016.
   
A subset of  IBM Medicare eligible retirees were allowed to stay on the IBM Group Heath Insurance Aetna (HMO or PPO) for the last two years and didn't use OneExchange.  This year they join the club. The IBM Aetna plan is terminating at the end of December 2015 and the retirees must now deal with OneExchange to buy at least one health insurance policy (Medicare Advantage, Medigap or part D) before the end of the year to get their HRA.  I just helped someone who is dealing with this situation and it was a little unsettling.
   
What IBM did for this group of people is more than a little patronizing.  They automatically enrolled eligible retirees into a 2016 individual Aetna Medicare Advantage plan which includes prescription drugs and sent out new health plan cards. These are plans ANYONE in your zip code can buy if it's available.  There is no unique IBM benefit in these plans. She thought she had the same IBM Aetna plan and just was getting it through OneExchange.  I bet that is the norm. The new plan was not a good fit, particularly for her drug coverage, so we worked through some options and decided original Medicare with a Medicare Supplement and a separate part D plan provided better benefit. I highly recommend affected retirees scrutinize the new Aetna plan to be sure it provides the right coverage. Another aspect to consider is that Aetna will be merging with Humana. Customer service is likely to be a nightmare in 2016.
       
The words used in the IBM letter said the new Aetna plan was a "comparable plan" but did not include dental nor vision coverage. Comparable is such a nice, empty word. It's like saying two houses are comparable because they both have bedrooms and bathrooms.  If these retirees do nothing, from Medicare's perspective, they're enrolled in the Aetna plan effective January 1, 2016. Technically, those retirees would have until the end of February 2016 to select a new plan because they have a "Special Enrollment Period" (SEP) from Medicare if they hadn't been automatically enrolled. Maybe it was just a kind gesture? It would have been a risky choice for anyone to wait until January or February of 2016 to select a new plan and be uncovered until the next month. By being automatically enrolled, those two months of the SEP are now gone because they now have a 2016 plan. Maybe if they call 1-800-MEDICARE and demand to be dis-enrolled they will get the full SEP.  I don't know if that is possible.  I suspect IBM did the automatic enrollment to give OneExchange significant commission from Aetna because they will be the insurance agent of record for those automatic enrollments. They know many elderly people will not understand what happened and take no action. I wonder if it is legal.  The bottom line is make sure you get the plan you need and not the plan IBM decided you want. Your SEP gets a little complicated. I believe you have until the end of December to pick a new plan.  But, after December 7th (the Open Enrollment period end), I think you can only enroll one time in a new plan, meaning you cannot keep changing your mind after December 7th.
 
This Open Enrollment  I need to switch to a new part D plan for my spouse and myself for 2016.  My spouse's current PDP plan does not cover a new drug.  My plan provides the lowest price only if I go to a Walmart pharmacy, which is the preferred network pharmacy. It is nine miles away, in a busy city and the service leaves a lot to be desired.  I always find a reason to go to a non-preferred pharmacy two miles away and pay a higher copay! Obviously, it isn't a good plan choice for me.  The basic advice is chose a part D plan with the lowest total of annual premium and drug costs that meets your needs. 

My approach to choosing a new part D plan was to first use the plan finder on www.medicare.gov.  I use that tool because it is the "official" Medicare plan finder.  If there is wrong information in the results from the federal government plan finder I can file a complaint with Medicare.  It also provides information on ALL the part D plans available in my zip code. OneExchange will only show part D plans that pay them commission (reminder - OneExchange is an insurance sales agent)! After deciding on a PDP plan, I went to OneExchange to see if they sold it.  It was on their list so that makes our part D switch easier since we can enroll through OneExchange and setup automatic premium reimbursement with one phone call.
       
If OneExchange did not have the plan, I would enrolled in the new PDP online at www.medicare.gov as there is an "enroll" link in plan finder.  If you don't like doing that then call 1-800-MEDICARE to enroll.  I do not recommend calling the insurance plan to enroll. They will likely try to up sell you to a Medicare Advantage plan and/or might enroll you in the wrong PDP or, worse still, a Medicare Advantage plan, by mistake.  It is misery to correct those problems because there is no easy way of proving it's wrong. They keep a voice recording of you agreeing to enroll.  If you enroll through Medicare it is far easier to correct any mistakes made by customer service.  As usual, be sure you make notes on the day, time and agent who helped you.  That's also true for OneExchange.  The new plan will send enrollment information within a couple of weeks.  Don't wait until late November to enroll.  Enroll early to make sure you got the plan you wanted and/or the information matches the information you saw online.  If not, you have time to correct it because you can enroll as many times as you want until December 7th.
 
I decided we will both enroll in the same part D plan because my spouse delegates insurance problem resolution to me!  His current plan wasn't particularly easy to work with and neither was mine. With both of us on the same plan at least I only have to learn one plan!  Oh, the joys of problem resolution.

Speaking of easy to use, the www.medicare.gov plan finder is not easy.  There is a lot of information but it is mostly designed for an experienced user.  Social workers and Medicare advocates navigate it very well.  The casual 65+ year old user experience is frustrating.  For example, it seems if you enter at least one drug even if you don't take any drugs (like Lisinopril) and select only one pharmacy in your zip code, plan finder will give you more information about plan choices and plan details. There is also some important "lingo" that you need to understand:

1. Pharmacy networks
    
   How you fill prescriptions is an important aspect of choosing the best part D plan. Plans might have out of network pharmacies that will not accept your insurance plan, in-network pharmacies that will accept your plan but at a higher copay price, preferred in-network pharmacies that will accept your plan at the lowest copay price, and mail order pharmacies. Not all insurance plans use a network pharmacies structure. The plan status of a pharmacy you select will be displayed in the plan finder results.  Beware, the results you see may not show a plan's "lowest price" pharmacy unless you happen to select it. Before you enroll in a plan, find out which pharmacy offers the lowest price so you can do an accurate comparison of plans. If you cannot easily find it, call the insurance company and then run plan finder again with that pharmacy.  Also, it seems if you select more than one pharmacy, plan finder will show a subset of the plans available in your zip code which are best match to the pharmacies you selected. That's why I recommend only picking one pharmacy because it doesn't do that if you pick only one pharmacy.  I cannot provide logic for why and it is worthy of a complaint to Medicare. 
       
2. Drug Tiers
   
   Drug tiers are categories that relate to prescription copay pricing. There are typically 5 tiers or categories for drugs. The higher the tier number, the higher your copay. Plans change the tier for a drug from year to year.  That's why it is really important to run plan finder every year to be sure you are getting the lowest price for your prescriptions. Each insurance company defines what their tiers mean and decide where to slot a drug. A drug might be tier 2 in one PDP and tier 3 in another PDP.  All the plans might put the drug into tier 2 but tier 2 can mean something different in each plan.  On the first screen for PDP results you will see a box that describes the deductible and the plan tier information in summary.  It isn't very helpful, doesn't say tier and looks like this:
        
       Drug Copay/ Coinsurance: $1 - $4, 20% - 35%.     
         
   The interpretation for that line is tier 1 & 2 drugs copays range from $1-$4, tier 3-5 coinsurance ranges from 20% - 35%. Really clear, right?  To see a plan's definition of tiers you must enter a drug (even if you don't use drugs).  Click on the plan name and go to the screen showing the details of the plan and the cost of the drug. Scroll down to find a link that is titled "View Drug Benefit Summary" (it is after the bar chart of drug costs) to get tier details. The detail will also help you better understand the plan's pharmacy network structure. I made a copy of a couple of tier structures for 2016 as examples:
   
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B83wVKnNLtjtUEJ2ZEhPd05MNFE/view?usp=sharing
   
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B83wVKnNLtjtb09QbDB0OExBbVk/view?usp=sharing
       
3. Drug Formulary
      
   The drug formulary is the list of drugs the plan will cover.  It's really important to find out if a drug is covered.  The plan finder results show with a "yes" or "no" as to whether all your drugs are covered by a plan.  Even if the plan shows a "no", in the details of the plan, the results will include the cost of the uninsured drug in the total yearly cost calculations.  It was designed to be helpful but I think it is confusing. You can apply a filter (on the left side before clicking to see plan details) to only see plans that cover all your drugs.  If you decide to use a plan that does not include your drug on its formulary, the cost of that drug will not count in calculations for doughnut hole computations.  That means you'd exit the doughnut hole only based on cost of drugs that are covered by your insurance plan.

Do not get distracted by which plan has a deductible and which doesn't.  It is sort of irrelevant.  The two most important factors are making sure your drugs are on the plan's formulary and the total annual cost of the plan for each kind of pharmacy. Usually mail order pharmacies are cheapest for 90 day supplies. But not always. The second example above is a plan that has the same pricing structure for retail pharmacies and their mail order preferred service.  If you use another mail order service (a non-preferred mail order service) your cost would actually be higher than getting supply from a retail pharmacy!
     
Medicare automatically saves the prescription information you enter on plan finder anonymously to enable you to retrieve the list in a subsequent session.  The id and password to retrieve your drug list will show on the upper right side of the drug entry page.  Retrieve the list by entering the id and password on the drug entry page the next time you use the tool. If you make changes note the new id and password for the changed list. They'll save those lists for years.  The trick is for you to remember where you recorded the ids and passwords!

If you have prescription refill scripts with your 2015 PDP pharmacies and the new plan has a new pharmacy network,  at the end of the year (while you still have the old plan) ask the new retail or mail order pharmacy to contact the old retail or mail order pharmacy to have them transferred so you will have them available in January 2016 without having to ask the doctor for new prescriptions.

If you want to learn more about Medicare's plan finder there are helpful videos on the right side of the plan finder screen.  There are also some scenarios available to practice.  I tried those and did not find them particularly helpful but maybe I am missing something. There are 5 case studies with different situations and a link to the training at:

 http://www.medicarerights.org/pdf/Plan_Finder_Training_Scenarios.pdf
                                
Happy Open Enrollment!



 

   

IBM Medicare OneExchange - Over 65 COBRA coverage

I recently had a conversation with a Medicare counselor and realized, once again, how difficult it is to understand Medicare rules as relates to employees who are currently working, are over 65 and think they about to be let go from the company (aka part of a "resource action").  Even the counselor got it wrong.
 
As long as you continue to work for IBM and it has more than 100 employees (which might become an issue if resource actions continue), your primary health insurance coverage is provided by IBM Group Health Insurance (GHI).  When you turn 65, I recommend you call Social Security and enroll in Medicare part A (hospitalization insurance) because it is "free". You can do this any time.  Medicare part A insurance will act as secondary insurance to IBM GHI and likely offer no benefit.  However, there may be times when it provides extra coverage.  For example, it might cover an "in-patient" procedure where your GHI might only cover the procedure as "out-patient".  It also is good to do it because you'll be "in the system" and it will be easier to enroll in part B when you are terminated or decide to stop working. There is rarely any benefit to enrolling in part B and paying the part B monthly fee.  Enroll in part B before you stop working if you know for sure you are going to be terminated and you want to guarantee there are no hiccups within various enrollment systems when you are no longer working.
 
The day you stop working is the day your Medicare part B and part D insurance must be active (UNLESS your spouse is still working and can add you to their insurance) to have continuous coverage. At that point, all insurance companies consider Medicare to be your primary insurance - even if you did not enroll.  This can be really confusing because often, as part of your severance package, you will be offered a COBRA.  When you stop working and you are Medicare eligible, COBRA is SECONDARY INSURANCE.  In fact, it is very expensive secondary insurance. Unfortunately, insurance companies don't bother to look at your age and tell you that.  As long as you stay well, the insurance company will likely cover your doctor services as if it is primary insurance.
         
IF YOU GET SICK and the bills start to pile, the insurance company will typically review your file, look at your age and then send you a letter telling you - WHOOPS - they are a secondary policy since you are Medicare eligible.  Sometimes they even claw back payments to doctors and hospitals that they have made. When people complained, they sometimes return paid premiums rather than agree to not do a claw back.  It can be a financial nightmare.  Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about selling you a COBRA plan because, as I said, it is secondary insurance.
 
There is another awful aspect to the COBRA nightmare for people over 65.  The day you stop working you'll enter a Medicare enrollment period called a Special Enrollment Period.  You have 8 months to enroll in Medicare and not be slapped with a penalty when you do enroll.  If you have a COBRA that is an 18 month COBRA and you don't know the rules, you could face a 10-20% part B premium penalty FOR LIFE depending on the time frame of that 18 months.  More importantly, depending on the time frame, you might have to wait until January of the next year to enroll in part B and your coverage will not begin until July 1st of that year.  
 
Sometimes people decide just to pay for part B when they turn 65 rather than have to deal with any of these problems.  That is quite a bit of overkill.  I recommend enrolling in part A, and the day you are told you "might be terminated" call Social Security and enroll in part B.  The day you are terminated, call OneExchange and buy a part D, medigap or Medicare Advantage plan from them so you can get your IBM health benefit subsidy.
 

 

IBM OneExchange Medicare - the "Doc fix" law and Medigaps

I embedded this topic as a sidebar in another post but realized yesterday when I was working with some Medicare counselors to help people figure out their Medicare options that even they did not know what Congress did when they passed the "Doc Fee Fix" law at the end of March 2015 so I decided to make it a separate topic.
 
In case you don't understand the basis of this law, here's some background.  Skip this paragraph if you know about the 2003 law.  In 2003, a law was passed to implement a Medicare fee formula that would reduce a doctor fee for services a little bit each year to "reduce" Medicare costs. Each year, doctors would threaten to opt out of treating Medicare patients and each year Congress would temporarily postponed the implementation of the law.  By 2015, doctor fees would have been reduced by 21%. This got the attention of many doctors who were seriously going to opt out of Medicare - hardly a good thing for a senior population that is rapidly increasing as boomers age.

Finally, in March 2015 Congress permanently eliminated that formula by repealing the 2003 law. However, there was, of course, a lot of horse trading among congressional constituents to make it happen. There were other things embedded in the new bill (H.R.2) to appease various factions.  For example, legislators included a provision to eliminate Medicare Supplemental plans (medigaps) that are "first dollar payer" plans beginning 2020. One medigap plan that does first dollar pay is the "F" plan. It carries a hefty premium but if you have original Medicare and an "F" plan you never have to pay a bill if a procedure is covered by Medicare. 
          
Congressional representatives believe people who have such plans "go to the doctor more" and thereby cost Medicare more money.  While it is probably true a small percentage of people who have such plans go to the doctor more, the root cause is likely because they are sicker.  Maybe that's why they buy those plans which, as I said,  are the most expensive plans.  But no one in Congress is doing root cause analysis nor reading position papers to find out if their hypothesis is correct.  Our legislators just decided those plans cater to people who are hypochondriacs.  There probably are some.  But the notion that a large number of people buy "first dollar pay" plans to be able to frivolously use doctor services is not true.  Who wants to go to the doctor?  As a sample of one, I sure don't. 
  
More interesting still, Congress did this to individual Medicare Supplement plans but did not make the same demands on companies that provide secondary group insurance to Medicare eligible retirees (as IBM once did) nor did they make the same demands on Medicare Advantage insurance  providers.  If first dollar pay plans are bad, why aren't they bad across the board?  It makes no sense. But then, it is Congress. Here's a thought - do they really just want  to privatize Medicare?  I'll leave it to you to figure out who the "they" are.
  
How does this impact you?  If you think you want a medigap "first dollar pay" plan then buy the insurance plan before 2020.  There are no guarantees, but typically when Congress eliminates a Medicare supplement plan type (as they did for J plans) they grandfather people who already have it so they can keep the plan. It is possible the insurance companies will decide to terminate those plans and then you're out of luck.  But, my bet is, they will just keep increasing the premiums until the plans are no longer worth having.  Once again, I think the only recourse we have  to stop Congress from mucking with Medicare is to work through organizations like AARP to create as strong a lobby as possible to influence Congress to treat seniors better.  Of course, if congressional representatives were forced to use Medicare just like the rest of us, none of this would happen at all.  
  
Update 10/29/15: Congress continues play with Doctor fees in the latest budget bill.  As usual, it is a "small negative item" in a big budget agreement that has a lot of pluses for Medicare and Social Security in particular and a great deal of good for the functioning of government overall.  It's the small negative that is irksome and unlikely to get a lot of attention.  Unfortunately, it is another reason doctors will decide to "opt out" of treating Medicare patients.  I've written before about the 2011 "sequestration" cuts that affected almost every government budget including Medicare that was part of a 2011 budget bill.  The cut for Medicare was a 2% fee reduction for medical services that was applied to the part of payment Medicare makes to providers.  What happened after that bill passed is easiest explained by way of example.  If the Medicare approved fee for a particular service was $100, Medicare would pay $80 and the patient would pay $20.  The 2011 bill provision cut the Medicare part by 2%, meaning Medicare paid the doctor $78.40.  However, the patient still has to pay the $20. 
   
The sequestration cut was supposed to expire in 2021, but Congress kept extending the expiration date such that it was pushed to 2024. Who even knew they were doing those extensions!  This new bill pushes the expiration of Medicare sequestration to 2025.  It's no wonder doctors want to stop treating Medicare patients.  What they are more likely to do is shift more cost to the patient.  As a remedy, the doctors can  charge a fee above the Medicare approved amount.  They can charge up to 15% more than the Medicare approved amount.  The 15% is called a limiting fee or an excess fee.  Guess who gets to pay that "excess"?  The Medicare patient, unless they have a secondary insurance policy that will cover it.  Not many of the medigap policy types  cover it - a few expensive policies do.  Sometimes, retiree secondary insurance will cover it.  Meanwhile, the fee schedule for procedures has not increased in years so even if sequestration expires and doctors start charging the limiting fee maximum, they will either do more factory style treatment or will walk away from treating seniors. Slowly, gradually, Medicare insurance is less and less a wonderful benefit for elders in our "Great Society". 

IBM OneExchange Medicare Reminders - OneExchange insurance offerings

If you are on Medicare (meaning you are over 65 and are retired from IBM) you probably got an email from OneExchange about Medicare's open enrollment which is October 15 - December 7. This enrollment period is dictated by Medicare and happens every year.  It is the time of year to analyze whether your Medicare part D insurance (for prescription drugs) and/or your Medicare Advantage insurance (for those not using original Medicare) still match your needs and, if not, to switch to new insurance coverage to begin in 2016.
     
Reminder: Medicare open enrollment DOES NOT apply to Medicare supplement insurance policies (aka medigaps).  The rules for when or if you can change to a different medigap policy are determined by where you live (the state).  For example, in California you can change 30 days starting with the day of your birthday but there may be a preexisting condition coverage waiting period of up to 6 months.  In New York, you can switch medigaps any time and the change will be effective the beginning of the next month. In other states there is no change window and you are at the mercy of the insurance companies to decide if they want to sell you a policy. There have been many requests to Congress to federalize medigap enrollment but so far it has fallen on deaf ears.
       
Reminder: OneExchange is an insurance agent.  They sell Medicare insurance policies that pay them commission.  They do not sell all the Medicare insurance policies that are available for to you to buy. Buying insurance from OneExchange is like buying a car from a Toyota car dealer.  They are only tell you about what they sell.  HOWEVER, you must buy one heath or drug insurance policy (Dental and Vision insurance doesn't count) from OneExchange to get your IBM health retirement benefit. .  For example, if you bought a medigap policy you qualify for your subsidy.
     
Reminder: Go to www.medicare.gov  beginning on October 15, 2015 and use "Find a Plan" to see the complete list of insurance policies available for you to purchase in your zip code.  Insurance companies decide what policies to sell by zip code demographics because the "younger" the Medicare eligible population the better.  It's akin to insurance companies that sell flood insurance in locations that do not flood.
     
Reminder: Part D and Medicare Advantage insurance companies change their policies from year to year. They add or remove drug coverage to formularies or change tier pricing. They change pharmacies. They add or remove doctors from their network (Medicare Advantage plans). They change co-pays.  Read all the literature your existing company sends to you.  Frequently the literature will say "we changed our pharmacy network".  That's all they legally have to do to notify you of a change.  You have to then figure out the details.  Call them  and go to www.medicare.gov  to see what they changed.

IBM OneExchange Medicare Budget Cuts to Federal Support Services for Seniors

Every day, about 10,000 boomers turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare.  What is the federal government's response to this tsunami of seniors?  Congress keeps cutting support programs to help seniors through the transition.  There has been a drastic reduction in the number of local Social Security offices in the last 5 years.  There now is a push in congress to further reduce the funding of State Health Insurance Assistance (SHIP) offices.  Every state has SHIP which was put in place to help people understand state laws for things like Medicare Supplement policies, structures of Medicare Advantage programs and requirements for low income support programs.  The Senate Appropriations Committee recently suggested a 42 percent cut in funding for SHIPs—from $52.1 million to $30 million.
 
The SHIP program is a network of over 3,300 local SHIPs with more than 15,000 trained counselors that provides one-on-one assistance and health care education for millions of people with Medicare. Between 2005 and 2014 SHIP assistance has increased 270 percent, from 1.2 million people assisted in 2005 to 3.4 million in 2014. If funding were reduced by 42 percent, about 1.5 million fewer people would receive assistance.
 

The funding for SHIPs is already less than it should be. Since fiscal year 2011, SHIP funding has not kept pace with inflation and has not accounted for the increase in the size of the Medicare population. If it had, then funding for fiscal year 2016 would be about $62.8 million. In addition to urging Senators to reject SHIP funding cuts, tell your Senators that even if the spending stays the same it is still about $12 million short of the preferred $64 million after adjusting for inflation and the increased number of people who have Medicare.
 
These kinds of program cuts are not widely understood by the general population.  Tell your friends what Congress is proposing to do to reduce help for seniors.

IBM Medicare OneExchange Medicare and custodial services coverage

For a number of years, I have been a volunteer with the Medicare Rights Center. From time to time I handle a call from the son or daughter of an elderly person with early dementia who is being release from the hospital after a fall or medical problem.  The caller always feels the patient is not ready to be release back home because of both their mental and physical condition. They want to know how to stop the hospital from releasing the patient. These calls are really difficult because there are no quick and easy answers to offer. The answer starts with a rather flat statement.  Medicare does not cover custodial care aka long term care.  If the patient is physically able to walk a few steps, has no other treatable medical problems, and the doctor does not prescribe any physical therapy then the hospital is going to release them.
     
This is the kind of situation that requires advanced understanding of Medicare coverage otherwise the caregiver will use the wrong words when appealing to the doctor, the hospital, and Medicare.  If they talk about the dementia, they will be told Medicare does not cover custodial care and appeals will be denied.
   
What does Medicare cover?  Medicare covers remedial care.  That is, Medicare covers rehabilitation. That can be provided in a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) or as an outpatient.  The purpose of remedial care is to stop the patient from getting physically worse.  It used to be that the patient had to improve. Those Medicare rules were changed about a year ago.  Knowing about Medicare remedial coverage can provide the right words to goad the doctor, hospital and Medicare into transferring the patient to a SNF and might give the caregiver some time to determine next steps as well as improve the patient's stamina.

The right words need to revolve around physical condition.  That means, in a case where the patient is elderly, the words need to be about how the patient's strength has waned from being in a hospital bed and how they need physical therapy to regain their strength before they return home or they will risk injury.  Those words are really important to use if the caregiver must do an emergency appeal to Medicare to stop the hospital from releasing the patient. The case to be made is the doctor and hospital are doing an inadequate job assessing the patient's strength and ability to walk. Risk of injury is also important to say.  DO NOT use ANY words about cognitive problems aka dementia. There is no rehabilitation for dementia.  Dementia falls into the category of long term care.

This is only a temporary fix to buy time.  The caregiver needs to do advanced planning regarding custodial care. Many people make arrangements for the elderly person to reside with them.  If that is not an option, then it may be time for a nursing home. The only private insurance that covers nursing home costs (which are substantial) is long term care insurance. The older a person, the more expensive the insurance premiums. Even for younger people, the premiums are substantial.  Medicaid is the only government insurance that provides custodial care but eligibility is limited to low income people with few assets. The rules for Medicaid vary from state to state.  In New York, if a person is low income (less than $1000/month)  and has few assets they might be eligible for Medicaid.  New York also has a program called Medicaid spend down which allows expenses for medical treatment to be subtracted from a person's income to determine Medicaid eligibility.  If the person qualifies for Medicaid, they are eligible to go to a Medicaid nursing home.  However, government budget reductions have caused the services in Medicaid nursing home facilities to diminished in recent years. It was never stellar.

AARP and other organizations are lobbying congress to include custodial care coverage in Medicare or provide people with the ability to buy into Medicaid because by 2020 about a third of our population will be over 65.  Given the current congressional opposition to the Affordable Care Act, it's a long shot. Petition your legislators if you believe more government remedies should come into play to help the elderly population deal with long term care costs.

There are no easy options for custodial care.  But knowing the right words to say if you encounter the described situation might provide you some short term relief while you consider your options.
 

IBM Medicare One Exchange Fall Enrollment for 2016 Medicare Insurance

Although it is early to start thinking about Medicare insurance coverage for 2016, the Medicare Advantage insurance providers will soon start flooding our mailboxes with  advertisements.

     

The literature companies send out in August are typically generic descriptions of their plans.  The details for their 2016 offerings won't be "officially" available until  September.  However, it is also the time when notifications are mailed for discontinued plans and/or plan modifications (such as prescription drugs no longer being on a plan's formulary or premium increases) for your current plans.  It is easy to get inundated with marketing information and overlook important plan notifications. Make sure to read everything you get in August and September from your 2015 insurance plans.  People frequently overlook formulary changes, health plan changes and discontinuation notices that will affect their 2016 coverage. 

  

Before the barrage of information hits, take some time to look at the pros and cons of your current health and prescription drug coverage.  If you are dissatisfied with the cost of your coverage based on premiums, copay/coinsurance or formulary coverage - it's a good time to consider what kind of coverage you want in 2016.

  

The insurance policies you are able to buy in 2016, as a Medicare recipient, are offered by zip code and will be listed in www.medicare.gov starting October 15, 2015.  You'll have until December 7, 2015 to chose and enroll in a different plan. After December 7th, you will not be able to change your coverage again until October 2016 for January 2017.  The one exception to that is if you want to switch from a Medicare Advantage plan to use original Medicare.  You can do that from January 1 - February 15. But there are a lot of other implications to doing that so it is not an easy switch. None of this applies to people with Medicare Supplemental plans (aka medigaps).  The rules for when and if you can change a medigap policy are determined by your state.  Contact your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (aka SHIP) to find out those rules. The phone number can be found at www.shipnpr.acl.gov

     

The Medicare Advantage and part D insurance companies always offer their policies based on zip codes.   If you have friends in other states or even in other counties in your state that rave about their policies, it may not help you decide on a plan because their policy might not be available in your zip code.  Also, don't forgot, the insurance policies offered through OneExchange are a SUBSET of the insurance polices you are able to buy in your zip code.  That's really important to remember.  For example, if the OneExchange prescription drug insurance policies do not provide coverage for the drugs you need or the cost of your drugs is high, look at the Rx insurance policies listed on medicare.gov or call Medicare (1-800-MEDICARE) to look for a less expensive Rx policy. You only need to buy ONE policy from OneExchange to be able to get your IBM HRA funding.  You do not need to buy all your Medicare insurance from OneExchange.

  

If you feel your 2015 insurance policies provide good coverage AND the insurance companies do not make significant changes to those policies for 2016 then there is NOTHING to do with either Medicare or OneExchange to continue coverage and get your IBM HRA in 2016.  

If you think it is time for a change then do some research and figure out your options. Do this yourself, don't rely on an insurance agent. That's like going to a Ford showroom and expecting a sales person to tell you about Toyota. Like OneExchange, insurance agents sell a subset of insurance policies you are able to buy. If you have original Medicare, a change you might consider is to switch to a Medicare Advantage plan.  Remember, once you go to a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan you trade a national coverage plan for a zip code based plan.  You also need to do a thorough job of looking at cost sharing for an MA plan. The insurance companies usually do not tell you about all the aspects of cost sharing unless you ask.  For example, ask them what is the copay for an out of network specialist or an ambulance. That might give you some insight of the true cost of their policy. Even better, ask for a complete schedule of cost sharing. Reputable companies will provide it.  Most importantly, make sure the doctors you want to see are included in the insurance policy network.  In October, look online at medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE to be sure your drugs are still covered by your plan and that you are not overpaying for your drugs. 

  

So, get ready - fall enrollment will be here before you know it!

  

  

IBM Medicare OneExchange Reimbursement for Opt-Out Doctors

I wrote about this a while ago but thought it was worth another posting because it continues to be an area that is annoying and there is no place that I found on OneExchange's site to tell you what to do.
   
Last week I submitted two paid bills from a doctor that does not accept Medicare.  That is, the doctor has chosen to "Opt Out".  He doesn't submit his bills to Medicare for processing (and denial) and my supplemental insurance is a standard medigap so it will not cover anything that Medicare will not cover.  Sometimes retiree secondary insurance provided by companies (yeah, there are still companies that still provide group plan coverage) do cover procedures not covered by Medicare such as acupuncture.  These insurance policies often want the doctor bill to be processed and denied by Medicare before they will pay for the services. We lost that kind of coverage when IBM threw us over the wall to OneExchange but if you have a spouse who covers you with that kind of insurance, there is a way for you to submit the claim to Medicare yourself.  The directions are on www.medicare.gov.
          
I don't often go to opt-out doctors so I didn't submit the claim the exact way OneExchange wants it done.  Of course, they denied my claim.  They said I had to submit an EOB from my insurance company with the bills.  That's really clear direction!  What they want to see is how much the insurance company had paid because I wasn't clear on the OneExchange claim form that this was an opt-out doctor service.
     
A digression: an EOB is an Explanation of Benefits statement that comes from a private insurance company.  OneExchange is assuming, by using that phrase, that I either bought a Medicare Advantage policy or I have original Medicare and bought a secondary policy.  Neither might be true and, as a claimant, I might only have original Medicare coverage.  If so, then the only thing I'd receive is an "MSN" or a Medicare Summary Notice, which is the original Medicare statement that is sent quarterly from Medicare.  OneExchange uses "EOB" even when they mean "MSN". 
 
Back to the topic of the blog post.  There are no directions anywhere from OneExchange on how to submit an "Opt-out" claim. Here's what to do:
    

• You need a bill from the doctor that is marked paid in full.

• You need the receipt for that payment (credit card or check) so do not pay the doctor in cash unless they can give you a separate receipt with your name on it! If you paid from an account, you must prove the payment is from an account that belongs to you so be sure there is some identification on the statement you provide that names you as the payer. I ran into this because when I print out my credit card transactions there is no owner name on the print out for a single item.  What I do now is make a copy of my credit card, black out all the numbers but the ones that match the print out and submit the card image with the claim to prove it was from my account.

• You have to write on the OneExchange claim form that the doctor has opted out of Medicare. For extra measure, I also write it on the doctor's statement.  

 
I forgot to write the opt-out information on the claim form (I only wrote it on the bill).  So, of course, I had to resubmit the claim. 

For most of this year submitting claims to OneExchange has been less irritating for me that last year.  Nonetheless, it is still annoying.

IBM Medicare OneExchange Original Medicare Out of Pocket Costs

I decided to try to decipher a bill I received yesterday from a provider.  It is almost impossible figure out how something is billed, why Medicare paid what they paid and what is due from the patient. It took me a couple of hours but I finally understand the bill.  I went back and forth between my MSN statements, my medigap EOB statements and the provider bill (which was particularly unintelligible).
 
The complicated Medicare billing is brought to us by CONGRESS!  They set the fee structure and they regularly fool with it.  Remember the ugly spate of legislative activity in 2013 that resulted in sequestration?  That resulted in a 2% reduction in provider payments. However, it did not change the patient coinsurance payment.  The easiest way to explain this is by way of example.  Suppose the Medicare approved doctor fee for a service is $100.  Prior to 2013, Medicare part B would have paid the doctor 80% of the fee or $80 and the patient would pay 20% of the fee or $20 (assuming the doctor accepts assignment).  HOWEVER, because of the 2% reduction from sequestration, now Medicare pays the doctor 2% less (on the $80) or $78.40.  MEANWHILE, the patient still owes the doctor $20.  So, when you get a bill from the doctor that shows how much Medicare approved, how much Medicare paid and how much you owe thank your congressional representatives for making it almost impossible to understand.
 
I know I keep harping on how congress niggles with Medicare but it is so important to all of us to know how this Medicare piggy bank keeps being raided.  I just read something about how the TTA (Obama's fast track trade) bill tried to imbed another cut to Medicare providers buried in the bill to pay for the cost to implement it.  There was going to be another 0.25% cut to providers.  Happily, the house voted to remove that provision. But it was only after the medical community raised a stink.  In an earlier post, I mentioned that resident doctors are paid salaries out of the Medicare budget.  Everyone benefits from the services of these beginning doctors.  Meanwhile, legislators scream about the high cost of Medicare.
 
Back to the topic of the blog - patient out of pocket costs in original Medicare.  Congress structured a payment process that varies between coinsurance and copayments.  Once again, it couldn't be more confusing.  What's the difference?  One is a percentage (coinsurance) and the other is a fixed amount (copayments).  Most of the time copayments are used for outpatient hospital related services and coinsurance is used for doctor related services.  Again, an example is the easiest way to explain it.  Suppose you have a cast on your arm.  If you go to the hospital as an outpatient to have the cast removed, you will pay a copayment.  So, if the hospital fee is $150 to take the cast off, your copayment might be $40.  The amount of copayment depends on the city where the hospital resides.  If you go to a doctor, it's an office visit so the service fee is likely to be less.  Let's say it's $100.  Your payment would be a coinsurance of 20% or $20.
 
Generally speaking, it is more expensive to have a service rendered by a hospital than by a doctor. But not always. The obvious case of WAY MORE EXPENSIVE is using the emergency room for services.
 
Medicare has a wonderful publication that describes original Medicare costs.  It came from the www.medicare.gov site:
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B83wVKnNLtjtSlg2aFJfQXhYbHM/view?usp=sharing

It's also important to remember original Medicare has no cap on out of pocket costs.  The only way to get an annual cap on out of pocket costs is to either buy a medigap plan or buy a Medicare Advantage plan.  This year I have been using a medigap K plan to have a cap on out of pocket costs.

If you are using a Medicare Advantage plan none of the rules described in the above publication apply.  Medicare Advantage plans are required to cover the same services as Medicare and are required to stay within Medicare's fee schedule. However, they can restrict who provides the services, pay providers less than the Medicare approved fee, and/or shift more of the fee burden onto patients.  Demand to see their cost sharing breakout for all procedures.  They are famous for having low copayments for primary care doctor and freely disclose those payments in marketing literature.  But when you step into the land of a specialist or an emergency they often shift to coinsurance payments and/or very large copayments (such as for ambulance services).  They can also change cost sharing from year to year so each year ask for the cost sharing terms. The government caps Medicare Advantage policy holder out of pocket costs to about $5000/year (which is the cap in my K plan).

IBM Medicare OneExchange - A Medicare Tutorial by Kaiser Foundation

The Kaiser Foundation is a great resource for information about Medicare.  The foundation regularly issues reports and statements about Medicare ranging from its history, how it works, who uses it and how much it costs.  They also regularly issue position papers to Congress to try to guide legislators to make informed decisions about Medicare.
    
For example, legislators have embedded in a recent law, H.R. 2 aka the "Doc Fix" law, a provision to eliminate Medicare Supplemental plans that are "first dollar payer" plans.  Congressional representatives decided people who have such plans "go to the doctor more" and thereby cost Medicare more money.  While it is probably true a small percentage of people who have such plans go to the doctor more, the root cause is likely because they are sicker.  Maybe that's why they buy those plans which are substantially more expensive.  But no one in Congress is doing root cause analysis nor reading position papers to find out if their hypothesis is correct.  Our legislators just decided those plans cater to people who are hypochondriacs.  There probably are some.  But the notion that people buy "first dollar pay" plans to be able to frivolously use doctor services is not true.  Who wants to go to the doctor?  As a sample of one, I sure don't.  Kaiser Foundation did advise Congress it was not true.  Congress chose to ignore them.  Amazing.
   
Anyway, the following report, issued in March 2015, by Kaiser is very comprehensive.  It covers the history of Medicare, an analysis of the users of Medicare and the impact of the Affordable Care Act.  It is a long report but I urge you to read it and become educated about Medicare because there is so much misinformation in the media.  This report will help you separate fact from fiction and maybe even be inspired to push your Congressional representatives to act on real information instead of hypothesis:
    
http://kff.org/medicare/report/a-primer-on-medicare-key-facts-about-the-medicare-program-and-the-people-it-covers/
 
I also urge you to pay close attention to what legislators do to Medicare because the changes are subtle and buried in bills like H.R. 2.  Remember, if a representative stays in office for five years they get federal health insurance coverage for life and don't use Medicare.  They have no vested interest in keeping Medicare robust. My hypothesis is majority legislators are taking a back door approach to privatizing Medicare. This "first dollar pay" legislative change did not apply to Medicare Advantage plans.  If it is bad then it should be bad for any insurance plan.  Why not restrict Medicare Advantage plans from doing it?   Do they want to push people to Medicare Advantage plans?  As more people use Medicare Advantage plans, the original Medicare insurance pool will shrink until it becomes unaffordable for the federal government to maintain as an option.  Is there is a slow drum beat to reduce Medicare insurance coverage by pushing seniors into private "managed care" insurance coverage? 

IBM Medicare OneExchange - Medicare information resources

Medicare is complicated.  Medicare is constantly changing.  Changes are usually small but can have a big impact.  Some changes are great such as the gradual closing of the doughnut hole because of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).  Some changes aren't really changes, they are just sudden enforcements of existing law. Nonetheless, these changes are confounding.  One example is the current Medicare push to enforce drug denials for "off label" drug usage. There are no easy ways to find out about policy changes.  AARP sometimes will highlight a change in their publications.  But, typically Medicare recipients don't find out about them until they encounter the situation.
    
I volunteer on a help line at a non-profit organization called the Medicare Rights Center (http://www.medicarerights.org/).  Recently, there have been a number of calls regarding the "off label" denial issue.  My normal inclination is to suspect the insurance companies.  However, in this case it is the Medicare administrative arm - CMS that issued instructions to insurance companies to do the denials.  When part D legislation was passed into law in 2003, the insurance rules for drug coverage stipulated drugs are covered only for FDA approved conditions. The reason Medicare cares about what is covered is because Medicare subsidizes the insurance companies.  For example, there is a pain alleviation drug called Lidocaine and it comes in patch form.  It was approved in 1999 by the FDA to treat pain associated with shingles. However, doctors often prescribe it to help with muscle pain.  That's an off label use.  A woman called who had been using the patch for five years for back pain.  Suddenly, her part D plan denied coverage.
   
There was no explanation in the denial notice about why this drug was suddenly denied beyond "not medically necessary".  There is also no point in appealing the denial (unless the off label use is related to a cancer treatment - then Medicare is more flexible) since it is Medicare enforcing the off label restrictions - not the insurance companies.  If you want more information about off label drug use rules in Medicare here is a link:
  
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B83wVKnNLtjtYjZPZmo1OUpTUGs/view?usp=sharing
  
 Unfortunately, doctors are as clueless as patients about an enforcement until they encounter it.  Sometimes there are workarounds.  For example, if you use a doctor that does not accept Medicare and that doctor orders a lab test at a lab that will accept Medicare,  the test will not be covered by your Medicare insurance because the origin was from a non-participating doctor.  The enforcement of this rule started a couple of years ago.  Non-participating doctors now work with doctors who do accept Medicare to ask them to submit lab tests so that it will be covered.  It's crazy to me to force people to only go to Medicare doctors for everything but that's how the law was designed. 
  
The Medicare Rights Center has a great information data base you can search at     http://www.medicareinteractive.org/  but it is unlikely you will find this type of information.  I suggest when you encounter a baffling denial, call the Medicare Rights Center (1-800-333-4114) because they will know what is trending.  They also have a great subscription (free) newsletter that often highlights these trends.

Of course, you can also always call 1-800-MEDICARE to ask questions.  Did you know --- the Medicare helpline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? The best time to call is late at night or early in the morning.  I suggest you use the rule of 3 when you call Medicare.  What is the rule of 3?  Call 3 different times to ask the same question.  Medicare call center agents highly vary in capability.  It's not as bad as OneX.  I am not sure that's a compliment.
   
Finally, if you think the Medicare "rule" is unfair, complain to your congressional representative.  Tell them, if the rule is so great, why aren't they required to use Medicare when they retire from congress. Retired congressional representatives get federal health insurance coverage for life if they have been in congress at least five years.  That's actually less then the eligibility for Medicare, which requires 10 years of work.   Also, support AARP.  It is a powerful resource as a Medicare lobby organization.

IBM One Exchange Medicare Insurance Denial Appeals & Provider Bills

When your Medicare medical insurance denies to pay for a service already provided by a medical practitioner, by law, you have the right to appeal the denial. Unfortunately, One Exchange aka Towers Watson will not help you as they have no legal requirement to help you resolve the situation nor have they contracted with IBM to provide such services.  As I have written so many times before, they are just insurance agents. You are on your own.  Any complaint you decide to pursue must be done via the the standard Medicare appeals process.  It is a legally defined process and  the process steps depend on whether you are using original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.
 
It's almost always worth it to appeal an insurance denial.  There are some obvious "not worth it" situations such as using a doctor who does not take Medicare or having a doctor preform a procedure not covered by Medicare (such as Lasik cataract surgery) and you signed an ABN (advance beneficiary notice) telling you Medicare might not cover it.  However, the denial is more often associated clerical mistakes like a provider coding a procedure incorrectly.  There are always instructions in the insurance denial letter on how to do an appeal.  The instructions are reasonably good.  Also, don't give up if you are denied a second time.  Appeal again!  The reversal rate is something like 50% for people who are persistent about appeals. 
 
I learned something today that is important to know if you decide to do an appeal.  Your provider cannot hound you for full payment of a procedure until all the levels of the insurance appeal are complete.  That can be a lengthy process.  As soon as you decide to appeal, call the provider billing department and follow up with a written letter telling them you are appealing the denial and not to bill you.  They, then, (by Medicare law) can only badger you for the copay or coinsurance for the procedure until you complete the appeals process.  If they threaten to send your full bill to collections, tell them it is illegal and you will file a complaint with Medicare if they do it.

 
 

    
   

IBM Medicare "About Your Benefits" Reference Book

A while ago I mentioned a reference book that IBM sent out in the beginning of 2014.  It is called
"About Your Benefits: Post-Employment" and has a subtitle "Summary Plan Description".
 
A great deal of this book is about plan information for retirees who are under 65.  When IBM stopped providing group insurance to retirees who are Medicare eligible most of the plan description was no longer relevant. 
 
However, there is important information in this book that is easy to overlook.  There are descriptions of programs that are still available to people over 65:
 

• Life Planning Account which describes the benefits for people who retired by 12/31/2003
• Special Health Assistance Provision (SHAP) for people who retired pre-1997
• IBM Adoption Assistance Program 
• IBM Legal information (which describes your rights to appeal claims that you cannot resolve through Towers Watson)

 
Maybe you did the same thing I did when I first got this book. I tossed it aside and assumed it no longer applied to me.  I subsequently had some trouble with a Life Planning issue and decided to look into the details of the plan by going to netbenefits.com.  I ended up finding my answers in this book.   
 
Here is a link to the letter we got with the book and the front cover of the book.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B83wVKnNLtjtYmJJaHktdTdPWUU/view?usp=sharing .You can find the book in netbenefits.com but it's a whole lot easier to peruse the hardcopy version.  If you cannot find your copy ... I suggest you call the IBM Employee Center and get a new one.        

IBM Medicare Supplement Provider Refund Aggravation

We just received a refund check from the hospital for a claim I paid before my spouse's Medicare Supplemental plan agreed to pay it.  In a previous post, I said I'd do a happy dance when I got the check.  Well, it's a short lived happy dance.  Nonetheless, it is a victory.  Seems the complaint letter to the CEO of the hospital did inspire the billing department to get into action and correct the situation.
   
I thought I was on the path to a full blown resolution of the refund situation and the hospital check would be the final fix.  Unfortunately, a couple of days ago, that changed. We got a bill from my spouse's primary care provider group and there was no refund showing any where on the bill applied to the balance due (that was how they were going to refund our money).  In fact, their bill could not have been more of a mess.  I get the feeling the provider group change accounting systems in the beginning of 2015. 
       
This new bill showed a new account number and my spouse's name included a middle initial (something they had not done before).  In addition, the bill had a line item for a doctor visit in December 2014 which was not submitted to the 2014 cheapo Medicare Supplemental plan for payment.
 
I tried calling the group billing department at least five times but could not get an answer.  I decided to skip trying email and sent a letter with copies of an old bill, the new bill and information about the claim refund that is due.  I also told them to submit the December claim to the cheapo insurance. 
     
I have an hypothesis about all the machinations we've gone through to get our situation resolved.  It seems no matter what the organization: insurance companies, hospitals, doctor groups, governmental complaint agencies, corporations (ergo, Towers Watson) ... all these organizations are operationally incompetent and/or somehow short changing the customer.  My hypothesis is the layoffs, reorganizations, consolidations, outsourcing and the organizational push to be ever more efficient have produced enormous dysfunction. "Do more with less" ends up being "Do less with less and if  the customer gets shabby service so be it".  Where are the Watsons when we need them?

Update on 4/19/15:  Time to do an unreserved happy dance.  The last provider finally sent a refund check.  Wow.  It only took about 6 months to resolve this mess.  Amazing.


   

IBM OneExchange Claims Processing Issues (and why I use FAX)

I know, I know --- how geriatric am I --- I use a fax machine to submit my claims.  How antique.  I also do not do recurring/automatic payments.  I am faxing claim submissions for several reasons.
    
I can quickly and easily talk through claims processing errors with OneX while making notes on the submission claim form so that there is a clear record of my interactions.  I skip the snail mail cost of stamps and printer ink to make copies of claims and documentation by faxing. Mostly, I believe it will be a lot easier for my family to know exactly what claims I have submitted and read about all my conversations with OneX by just looking at my hardcopy claims folder if I am unable to do it.  My spouse is totally cantankerous about this IBM transition (read that as ornery), resents the HRA funding process and would abandon the reimbursement rather than dig around my computer to figure out the process. I've warned the kids about it but when I try to show the process to them their eyes glaze over. My feeling is maybe my hardcopy folder will help them quickly understand the process and history. However, I have reconsidered my position on recurring payments and decided I should enroll in those payments just because of that last reason. It would mean that at least the insurance premiums would be automatically reimbursed if I am unable to submit claims and no one else takes the time to file claims.  Anyway,  OneX also made a lot of mistakes last year.  Unfortunately, the mistakes continue.
         
In January, a processor rejected one of my claims saying there was inadequate documentation.  I called OneX and the call center rep went through the fax image of the claim.  She  said the processor clearly made a mistake and she'd send it in for review.  I never heard about that claim again. Two days ago, two of my claims were rejected for the same reason.  The call center rep I spoke to yesterday said the fax pages must have not transmitted.  When I asked if he went through the fax image to see if they had transmitted, he admitted he did not.  But, it didn't matter, he said, since the only way to get all three claims reconsidered was to resend them to OneX.   Sigh.
     
It's not a big deal to resubmit the claims, just annoying.  They are premium payments so I am going to do the recurring/automatic payment process for all our premium payments to try to curb the processing errors as well as deal with my recalcitrant spouse. 
 
Update:

Well, I, once again, am an idiot.  No matter how many times the call center representatives give me incorrect information I continue to believe them.  I called OneX to activate Automatic Reimbursement for the policies we bought through OneX thinking she could just "do it" and I wouldn't have to troll around the website.  The call center rep told me I had to submit a recurring reimbursement form.  I asked if I could do it online but she told me I needed to send in the form. She said she could just mail me the form or I could get the form online but I had to send in the form. She never asked nor did I say we bought the policies through OneX. I assumed (there I go again being an optimist) she could see it in our account. I had some forms they sent out last year so I didn't need to go online. After I faxed the form I decided to read the back of it and the form doesn't apply for policies we bought through OneX. Then, I decided I should just go online and see how to activate it.  It is embarrassingly simple.  Duh. 

IBM Medicare Supplement Provider Refund Problems

My happy dance over getting the 2014 cheapo supplement insurance plan to properly pay claims didn't last long.  Since the middle of December I have been trying to get the providers (doctors and hospitals) that have been overpaid to refund our money. 
    
The Medicare supplemental (aka medigap) insurer sent us a letter stating they only provided claim payments to providers and not to beneficiaries.  We had paid all the claims to these providers, who were very prompt about requesting payment, by the end of September.  So, when they received payment from the insurance company they were obviously overpaid.  I waited a couple of weeks after being notified the insurance company sent them payments before calling providers to see if they got the money and issued refund checks.  I am such an optimist.  By early January, I received no refunds so I started calling providers that had been overpaid.  It was an easy call for doctors who were part of a group practice.  The accounting office readily agreed they were overpaid and said they would refund the money.  I am mildly irritated that I needed to call at all, but at least they acknowledged the overpayment.
   
Dealing with the hospital and the hospital doctors was not as easy by a long stretch.  I struggled through calls to different accounting departments - which I had to do based on what service was provided.  I was told there were multiple accounts and needed to talk through each procedure's payment for the customer representative to tell me whether or not it was overpaid.  In one case, the customer representative said they had sent a payment back to the insurance company because it had been overpaid.  In another case the customer rep said a claim had never been submitted to the insurance company but that she would do it. Unbelievable, right?  
  
One customer service rep finally did agree a refund was due and said it would be sent. It was less than what I believed it should be but at this stage any refund is a good refund.  Anyway, nothing was repaid to us.  In mid January I wrote to the different accounting departments in the hospital (no joke) and provided evidence of overpayment to try to get a refund.  Still, we received nothing.  This week (mid February) I wrote to the hospital CEO to complain about the situation. 
 
I also went on the hunt for a governmental agency that might help.  It turns out the Department of Health only takes complaints about providers who are medically negligent.  They clearly state, don't complain to us if you have a billing problem. Medicare won't take the complaint.  CMS (the agency handling Medicare operations) clearly states they only handle provider fraud complaints. Fraud is when a doctor bills Medicare for a procedure that was never administered. This isn't fraud. The only agency I found where I can complain is the state Attorney General Consumer Protection Bureau.  I am hoping I don't have to do it as it will likely take months, if not years, for the Consumer Protection Bureau to even read my submission much less act on it.    All governmental protection agencies have had significant personnel reductions.   It's no wonder organizations are casual about their consumer interactions.  The complaint process is also onerous as I have to supply all the supporting documentation as well as file the complaint.  I sure hope the CEO letter provides some magic.
 
So, I once again urge you all to be diligent about analyzing your insurance statements, making sure doctors have submitted claims properly and making sure you track your deductibles before making provider payments. 

Update:  The CEO complaint letter seems to have been the catalyst to finally get the hospital to refund money.  I just got off the phone with the billing supervisor who agreed that we are due a refund but not without some taffy pulling.  At first she insisted there was no refund due.  I had all the information about the claims, dates and payments and started listing them off.  She then looked more closely at all the claims and agreed the hospital had been overpaid.  She said, "I was just looking at the payments for May".  It's beyond me why she was not looking at ALL the payments!  Although I feel it might finally be resolved,  I will refrain from doing a happy dance until I get the check.