My mom is in a nursing home with Dementia and will soon be on Medicaid with no income. She has health coverage with United Healthcare and a monthly premium of $180. My sense is that I should cancel the coverage since she can't afford it and since she will be covered by Medicare and Medicaid. She is 88 and has dementia but no know diseases or injuries. Can anyone share your thoughts on this? Thanks!
I think the reason most people wind up on Medicaid is because on Medicare they only cover 80% of the charges and they have recently made changes where there are many items that use to be covered that no longer are. The only reason I went to Medi Cal was because I needed a 2ndary insurance carrier but could not afford one and I needed help with the cost of medication....one prescription alone was $567 a MONTH!
In reality keeping Medicare would be great if you could afford a 2ndary to pick up the balance. I have never wanted to get off anything as bad as I would like to get off Medi Cal!!!
My sister just got Medicare and signed it over to Kaiser and her copays ON EVERYTHING are outrageous. As a senior she is paying more now in copays than she did prior to having Medicare and being on Kaiser through her employer.
If anyone knows of any great insurance available in California please let me know!
All of her income goes directly to the facility each month and the facility pays her insurance premium. I suspect this benefits the facility in that they can get reimbursed from the insurance company for certain procedures that Medicaid might not cover. In any case, there's nothing to be gained by cancelling the supplemantal insurance as the facility takes all income anyway.
This all started about a year ago and my Mom has had 2 hospitalizations and other extra procedures and there have been no extra charges. Mom is in NJ and a lot of these "rules" seem to vary among states so it's best to check the regs where you live.