StuUnderPressure wrote:The Employer is the one that decides if you must go on Medicare when you retire & to make Medicare your primary insurer.LSAT wrote:
I'm not doubting you, but, I was always told that if you were on Medicare, it was always primary and any other insurance was secondary. When I left my job years ago, I questioned it and that is what I was told. About 2 years ago a friend was in the same situation and was told the same thing.
Of course, it is to the benefit of the employer to get someone older off of their group insurance & let someone else pay the "usually" higher health costs of that retired employee.
The advantage of having Medicare "my" primary insurer is that Medicare pays 80% & my Secondary (BC/BS) pays the remaining 20%.
I never have any copays, deductibles, or any other out-of-pocket costs.
"My" Secondary even pays the Medicare deductible in full.
The big disadvantage to having Medicare your primary is whether the current Doctors, etc. you use will accept Medicare.
If they do not, you may have to switch Doctors, etc.
All but 1 of mine were not accepting any new Medicare patients - but they were keeping their current patients who merely switched from a private insurer to Medicare.
Correct. If the employer decides to use HSA, they can insist you choose Mdc as your primary.(just as you say because the underwriting for older participants don't help the premiums.) . Actually I have not paid anything after my Mdc deductible was paid(as you said) so I have to undo my own words. However, I keep thinking there is some different thing. Besides drs cringing when they see MDC (altho multi insurances they love) but I believe Medicare has their allowable amounts and if its left over from a primary, the balance is not billable to the pt. Not sure the reverse is true. I know when I did billing, there ere carry over balance even when a person has 2 insurance including mdc.