Medicare 'Check up' coming to Morrow County Sept. 11

Ohio Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor and Depart­ment of Insur­ance Direc­tor Mary Tay­lor announced the Department’s Ohio Senior Health Insur­ance Infor­ma­tion Pro­gram (OSHIIP) is hold­ing a free “Medicare Check-up ” at Seniors on Cen­ter at 41 W. Cen­ter St. in Mt. Gilead Sept. 11 at noon.

The event coin­cides with Medicare’s Octo­ber 15 to Decem­ber 7 annual enroll­ment period. The ses­sions are intended to help peo­ple review changes to Medicare and deter­mine their best cov­er­age option for 2013. The first Check-up events start in late August and new cov­er­age begins Jan­u­ary 1.

OSHIIP recently cel­e­brated its 20^th anniver­sary as Medicare’s des­ig­nated edu­ca­tional pro­gram in Ohio for ben­e­fi­cia­ries, fam­ily mem­bers and health care professionals.

“Deter­min­ing the appro­pri­ate Medicare cov­er­age should be done with the help of a fam­ily mem­ber or a knowl­edge­able and trusted advi­sor such as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from our OSHIIP pro­gram,” Tay­lor said. “This should be a care­ful, delib­er­ate process so you secure a plan that best meets your health­care needs and budget.”

In addi­tion to the Check-up events, peo­ple can call OSHIIP at 1–800-686‑1578 with ques­tions, and for enroll­ment assis­tance (begin­ning Octo­ber 15). A spe­cial Depart­ment Medicare Check-up and Open Enroll­ment Toolkit, which includes a list of plans (to be announced in Octo­ber), finan­cial assis­tance infor­ma­tion, and an events sched­ule, is avail­able at www.insurance.ohio.gov. You can also like and fol­low OSHIIP on Face­book at www.facebook.com/OSHIIP.

Dur­ing annual enroll­ment, ben­e­fi­cia­ries can select one of sev­eral health cov­er­age options: 1) Orig­i­nal Medicare paired with a stand-alone Part D pre­scrip­tion drug plan and per­haps a Medicare Sup­ple­ment plan. 2) A Medicare Advan­tage Plan, which pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive health ben­e­fits includ­ing drug cov­er­age. 3) Or, deter­mine if their exist­ing cov­er­age will meet their health insur­ance needs for the upcom­ing year.

When review­ing plan options, Tay­lor said to con­sider the con­ve­nience of being able to use phar­ma­cies near where you work or live, to take into account all out-of-pocket expenses, and ensure a plan’s cov­ered drug list includes your prescriptions.

At the events, ben­e­fi­cia­ries can learn about recent changes to Medicare such as the new Medicare deductibles, co-pay, and coin­sur­ance amounts; Medicare Advan­tage and Part D plan options for 2013, and about finan­cial assis­tance pro­grams. Atten­dees should bring their pre­scrip­tions drugs list with dosages and pre­ferred phar­macy, and infor­ma­tion on retire­ment cov­er­age, Veteran’s Admin­is­tra­tion (VA) or other med­ical care ben­e­fits they receive.

Tay­lor asks Ohioans to watch for preda­tory sales prac­tices dur­ing annual enroll­ment. Insur­ance agents are pro­hib­ited from using high pres­sure sales tac­tics, con­duct­ing door-to-door sales for Medicare Advan­tage plans, and rep­re­sent­ing them­selves as being from Medicare. Peo­ple who pose to be agents can also use sim­i­lar tac­tics. If you feel vic­tim­ized, get as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble and call the Department’s fraud and enforce­ment hot­line at 1–800-686‑1527.

Those with Medicare ques­tions and in need enroll­ment assis­tance, includ­ing finan­cial assis­tance, can call OSHIIP at 1–800-686‑1578, Mon­day through Fri­day, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or Medicare at 1–800-MEDICARE (1–800-633‑4227), 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. Infor­ma­tion is also avail­able at www.medicare.gov.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.