Alerts:

Beware of HMO's ...Medicare and Medicaid have recently in acted legislation that requires the medicare or medicaid recipient to be signed up with a private company to manage their insurance funds for our government.  If it saves our country money, that would be great.  However, as a taxpayer and a medicare/medicaid recipient you must be cautious.

Check out the HMO companies that are available.  Research the companies provider list so you can see if your favorite Medical Equipment Supplier or  a Specialty Physician is able to work with the HMO.  Also, research the specific options of your insurance coverage.  Pay attention to out of pocket costs with respect of prescription drugs, physician co-pays, and medical equipment coverage.  Many are seduced by the prescription * drugs benefit that they don't pay attention to their medical equipment coverage.  Resulting in the recipient saving a little money every month on drugs but when the day comes that the recipient needs a walker or a wheelchair they must come up with a lot of money out of their own pockets.  Leaving some recipients in a major catch 22.  So this means that you must be an informed consumers with not only the private businesses but with our government agencies as well.  Shop around, call an independent third party to help you shop for the right insurance coverage.  Don't fall prey to making the wrong selection of HMO because it may haunt you in the future.

Another issue with our government requiring private organizations to manage your medicare and or medicaid is that though it can be argued that these large HMO corporations are more efficient because of their standardization methods compared to dealing directly with the government or with smaller local providers; however, I disagree.  The efficiency of the large corporations benefits that companies stockholders not necessarily the medicare or medicaid recipients.  And often what happens is that the large companies actually may have terrible customer service that gives recipients the run around.  (e.g. telling you they will pay for something and your trusted medical equipment supplier says that they won't pay.  I have had many reports of this happening.  And when you finally find out who the equipment provider for that particular company is and you contact that company you may get terrible customer service and a big run around.   It seems pretty convenient to lure people into your company with all the perks so that you can leave them high and dry in the future only to reduce your spending overhead and put more money into the stockholders pocket.  Bottom line it affects the consumer; therefore, the consumer must take every effort to make the most informed decision. 

     Nick Murphey

SALT (Seniors And Law Enforcement Together)