Medicare Supplement Plans

Supplemental insurance is healthcare protection that is added onto your base plan to amplify it and give you greater coverage from out-of-pocket expenses. As healthcare costs go up each year, you may need to change up your coverage and get more and more insurance. Medicare Supplement plans allow you to do that in a very effective way.

There are a number of Supplement plans that you can pick from, and if you start out on one of the lower coverage plans, you can increase your coverage later on by switching your plan out for a higher coverage one. These plans are sold by private insurers like Cigna, Aetna and more, and they choose the prices. You can find out what their rates are here on our site, as we give you a free tool to search for quotes and find the best possible price.

The Supplement plans also go by the name Medigap, and they provide you with powerful coverage that takes care of those expenses not being covered by Original Medicare. You can basically add them onto your Medicare insurance and get greater coverage and greater peace of mind. It’s a superb way to enhance your coverage without radically changing your insurance plan or giving up your Original Medicare plan.

Keep in mind that Medicare and Medicare Supplements are usually not compatible with employer or union-based healthcare plans. You usually have to pick one or the other. If you enroll in a Medicare Supplement, then you cannot sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan at the same time. The two are incompatible.

Supplemental insurance would cover you for a lot of different medical expenses. With Medigap, it always covers you for expenses not included in the Original Medicare plan, giving you coverage that you don’t already have and helping to minimize out-of-pocket costs for you.

Here is what the supplements could cover for you:

• Deductibles
• Copayments
• Coinsurance
• Excess charges for Medicare Part B services (outpatient care)
• Three pints of blood every year (with the rest already covered by Original Medicare)
• Foreign travel exchange (the cost of being transported outside the country for a medical emergency)

There are a few of these plans that really stand out as offering incredible value and a lot of coverage. We want to tell you about a few of them, but you should know that there are others as well that can offer you a different level of coverage and protection.

Plan F – The main thing to know about this Medicare Supplement plan is that it is no longer available to most people. It is a discontinued plan, and that means that unless you are currently signed up for it, you will not be able to enroll in it for this year or any year hereafter. Of the Medicare Supplement plans, Plan F offers the highest coverage, including every single supplemental expense, such as all the deductibles, copayments, excess charges and other expenses we just listed above. It covers all of these for both parts of Medicare- parts A and B.

Plan F was delisted because of its high cost and similar coverage to other plans that were far less expensive. It just wasn’t seen as a good value proposition to most seniors, and Medicare agreed and cancelled it. If you still have this plan, then you probably want to look at replacing it shortly, since it is part of a high risk pool and will experience higher than normal price increases from year to year.

Plan G – This is the highest coverage plan still available from the Medicare Supplements. It covers you for most supplemental insurance, and the only supplemental cost that it does not cover is the Medicare Part B deductible. That is an expense you will have to pay out of your own pockets, but it is not a very big expense, coming in at only $198 a year.

Plan N – This high coverage plan doesn’t cover you for quite as many medical expenses as Plan G, but it is still great coverage plan for those people who need a lot of protection. It can cover you for all of the Part A copayments, deductibles and hospice coinsurance. It also covers nursing coinsurance, three pints of blood a year and foreign travel exchange. It will even cover you for some of the Medicare Part B copayments. It doesn’t cover the Part B excess charges, though, or the Medicare Part B deductible. You have to pay for those yourself. So, it lacks some of the coverage of the other two plans we looked at, but it really only asks you to pay for expenses that are not that significant (Part B’s deductible and copayments) or that you would not have to pay often (Part B’s excess charges).

We also want to tell you about a few medical insurance companies that offer great deals on Medicare Supplements and that have great reputations for customer service or offer some great benefit packages without charging you more for these perks.

You can find their rates here on our site, and it is very easy to compare quotes from them when you perform a search here. You can just enter your zip code and then get results back in moments. You’ll be able to easily see who has the best price for medical insurance.