What is Part B?
|
And the answer is this, if you decline Medicare Part B when you are first eligible and you don’t have creditable coverage somewhere else, if at some point in the future you decide to apply for Medicare Part B, Medicare will impose a 10% penalty to your future monthly premiums for ever full 12-month period that you go without having Medicare Part B, and that penalty is for the rest of your life.
Now when you do decide to apply for Medicare Part B, you will not be able to do it right away, you will have to wait for the general enrollment period which is from January 1st through March 31st, however your Part B coverage will not start until July 1st of the year you apply. So it is very important that if you’re new to Medicare and you have no other coverage, to go ahead and elect to get Medicare Part B coverage because, in addition to avoiding the penalty, you could also get substantial benefits, including some that are not even offered through Original Medicare, simply because you are enrolled into Medicare Part A and Part B. |
So what does Medicare Part B cover?Part B covers all of your outpatient services. Any service that consists of going in and coming out the same day. For example, Part B covers doctor visits, lab work, x-ray diagnostic services such as MRI’s and CT scans, specialist, outpatient procedures and other types of diagnostics where they may go in with a camera. It also covers outpatient Surgical procedures. Whether they’re done at the hospital or at an ambulatory center, these are called same-day outpatient procedures. It also covers emergency room, urgent care, ambulance and durable medical equipment such as walkers, wheelchairs, oxygen, CPAP machines, diabetic shoes, scooters, prosthetics devices and artificial limbs.
In addition to those services, your Medicare Part B also covers a list of over 30 different preventative examinations. These examinations are categorized as preventative and are intended and designed for the purpose of preventing and identifying any illnesses at their early stages where they will be easier to treat, diagnose and manage. And the last thing Medicare Part B covers is outpatient therapeutic procedures like physical therapy, occupational therapy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and language speech therapy. |
Medicare Should Be Easy!
In addition to that Medicare Part B also covers any medications that are administered on an outpatient basis such as a shot of cortisone for a knee or limb, a shot of epidural, chemotherapy and other injectables that are usually administered at the doctor’s office.
So these are the services covered under Original Medicare Part B. Now like I mentioned before, under Original Medicare you can go to any provider that accepts original Medicare, however you would have to pay original Medicare out of pocket rates.
So let me explain what you will have to pay for Original Medicare Part B services. The first thing you would have is an annual deductible. The annual deductible for Medicare Part B is a fixed amount that medicare sets and is subject to change every year.
|
So depending on the year you are getting this information will determine that amount. Once you meet your Part B deductible, you would then go into a share of cost with Medicare where they would pick up 80% of the negotiated amounts for all Part B services, and you would be responsible for the remaining 20%.
The only exception to this are preventative services which are covered at zero cost regardless of whether you are on Original Medicare or a managed care plan (In a different course I will be covering managed care plans, which are also known as Medicare Advantage Plans, which falls under Part C under Medicare).
So in a nutshell, Part B and Part A (which I cover in another video) are your basic Original Medicare Benefits if you do nothing and keep things as they are when you get your Medicare card.
|