Traveling With Medicare
Lying on the beach of Oahu Island, enjoying your vacay but suddenly you feel uncomfortable, and you know that you need medical attention immediately, what will you do? Go back home while you still have two weeks of vacation with all the hotel and car rental has been paid? Continue to stay under uncomfortable conditions? Then you could not enjoy your trip. No worries, you have been worked and contributed for so many years, Medicare got your covered. How to access care with Medicare, this is a very helpful information for Medicare beneficiaries, especially for those frequently travelers.
There are many different types of plans offer in Medicare, people make difference choices between plans. Many Medicare beneficiaries choose to enroll in Medicare Advantage (MA) plan or Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MAPD) Plan, one of the benefits is that you can save money on the medical services cost if you see the physicians within the plan network. But what about the out of network provider, would that be covered by your plan? There is exception for this kind of service, it is covered but with condition such as emergency. So, if you think about of traveling out of state, there are couple things that you need to pay attention to:
- With MA/MAPD plans, emergency will be coverage when you are traveling within the United States (some plans also cover urgent care- check with your plan), even out of network. You do not have to worry about the coverage if you get ill suddenly or break your ankle while on your trip.
- Non-emergency or non-urgent care while on your trip, it may not be covered, and you will have to pay more out of pocket even if it is covered.
For those Medicare beneficiaries who enrolled Medicare Supplement, they have more flexibility than Medicare Advantage plan members, they can access to care if the provider is contracted with Medicare, they are free to seek care from these providers-such a privilege. They have that flexibility because they pay a much higher premium compared to Medicare Advantage Plan.
Even if you only have original Medicare, you still can access to care within United States for your care, the only catch is you will have to pay for all the deductibles before Medicare kicks in and you also must pay what has left over from Medicare.
Does not matter what type of health plans you have; Medicare Beneficiaries are allowed to access/seek for care of emergency or urgent care (if covered) while you are traveling from state to state. Medicare got your covered, so you can enjoy your trip around the country but as mentioned above if non-emergency or non-urgently needed care, MA/MAPD may or may not covered, please check with your plan benefits to verify the coverage.
