Health insurance through AARP?

Question

My grandparents have decided to change their supplemental insurance (they are currently covered my medicare +supplement). There have been a few issues with the supplemental leading to them wanting to change. First question, grandma (age 90) had a stroke recently (resulting in her spending the last 2 months in a nursing home) and has alzheimer's. What kind of problems does this pose for changing supplemental coverage? Second, the family would like to move grandparents to Florida (closer to large portion of the family and one person could live with them). So, insurance would have to be usable down there. Current supplement, is not usable in Florida. Finally, we are looking at AARP insurance. It looks like this is provided through United Healthcare. What experiences have people had using this type of coverage? Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

My mother has AARP,  Used in in California, Oregon and Washinton.  We are very happy with it. Last year she had medical bills from a heart operation over $200,000.  Between medicare and AARP she paid $19. and that was because she requested an upgrade TV  package.

There are other good packages also.

I don't think there is any pre-existing coverage issues.  (verifiy)

Answer 2

I write AARP's plan F through United Healthcare. Your grandmother will have to answer the health questions and qualify for any of these medicare supplements. The stroke will disqualify her. Do they have a local agent you can call on for advise, the one who wrote them their current plan? I don't know of any reason their current medicare supplement would not be portable. Be sure it is a medicare supplement they have and not a medicare advantage plan because they are not portable, but coverage and price of these plans are based on the area or zipcode of where you reside.

Answer 3

I don't work for AARP but I do work in the billing office of a hospital and many patients who come through our hospital have AARP as supplemental. In fact, it is probably the most commonly used supplemental insurance, or at least where I live. I live in CT so I don't know whether you can have AARP in FL, but seeing as United Healthcare (UHC) is based out of Atlanta, Georgia, then I don't see why not.

I've found that AARP rarely seems to leave any financial responsibility to the patient except for the occassional Medicare Part B deductible, which some AARP plans don't cover.  However, AARP follows Medicare's claim guidelines like most supplemental insurances do, so (for example), if Medicare denies your grandma's colonoscopy because they didn't think it was medically necessary, than AARP will deny also, and your grandma will owe the entire bill for that service.

But if you just want a secondary insurance plan that will pay their Medicare copays for your grandparents, than I would highly recommend AARP.  Your grandparents can also choose to have United Healthcare for supplemental insurance (not the same as AARP) but UHC doesn't pay well as a secondary insurance, meaning your grandparents will owe more (just an observance).

Just out of curiosity, what supplemental insurance do they have now?  

Other popular supplemental plans:

Bankers Life

Genworth Financial

Monumental Life

Mutual of Omaha

Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield

Answer 4

All medicare suppliments are the same from company to company Part D is identical with each company, etc. There are 12 different supplimental parts. A, B, and D being the most common. They are usable in all 50 states as it is a federally subsidized program. Call an AARP agent to get the particulars. They are one of the cheapest and are pretty knowledgable in that area.