Medicare Replacement Insurance?

Notes from the Medicare Marketing and Sales Podcast Episode 74

Part 1 (of 2)

What is Medicare replacement insurance? For insurance agents, you may have come to realize this is Medicare Advantage plans. So why do some people call it Medicare replacement?

The first culprits are medical billing offices. They no longer bill Medicare for services, they bill the insurance carrier. This “replaced” their billing methods, so technically they are correct when they say. Do they explain this to their patients? No, they may just say “Oh, you have that Medicare replacement insurance.” This of course may send your client into a tailspin thinking they no longer have Medicare.

You can be proactive and let your clients know before the end of the enrollment this may occur, and not to worry that the replacement is just the billing for the provider, as they are no longer billing Medicare but the insurance company and their Medicare insurance is still in place, just letting the insurance company do the heavy lifting.

You may also want to visit the medical office and offer to be a resource. I would tread lightly in trying to correct the staff there as they may take offense to some random insurance agent coming in and telling them they are wrong.

For the other culprits, check out part 2 of this blog post…