A Happy and Prosperous New Year for all who visit this newsgroup. We are
doing our usual thing, staying home and staying sober, will watch the
doings on TV and probably be asleep before midnight.

We start anew with a Medicare Advantage Plan (old people health
insurance) tomorrow but with a much better outfit - Kelsey/Seybold. If
you've ever heard of them you know their reputation, the only five star
Medicare plan in existence. We have high hopes of better care and better
doctors.

George and Miz Anne

George Shirley wrote:

> A Happy and Prosperous New Year for all who visit this newsgroup. We are
> doing our usual thing, staying home and staying sober, will watch the
> doings on TV and probably be asleep before midnight.

we thought we were going to visit a friend for the
evening and ring in the new year with her, but it
ended up not working out so we did the usual (Ma
watched the tube and i read and goofed around with
computer stuff). so a very exciting evening.


> We start anew with a Medicare Advantage Plan (old people health
> insurance) tomorrow but with a much better outfit - Kelsey/Seybold. If
> you've ever heard of them you know their reputation, the only five star
> Medicare plan in existence. We have high hopes of better care and better
> doctors.

i wish you the best of luck with that George.

i may not have insurance. i thought i had
switched plans in early December. i called,
talked to someone, selected a plan, made sure
it was set up to get automatically paid like
my previous plan, etc. hung up and went upon
my way. a few weeks later i get a bill for
the wrong amount. no big deal, the bill gets
paid automatically anyways and the amount is
larger so i figure it doesn't matter in the
greater scheme of things. i can take care of
it after Christmas.

a few days later i get my id card in the mail
and then get another id card, two different
group numbers, but i'm not sure which is the
right one. i have yet to get any info packet.
figured they were just backlogged... still not
too concerned, but curious what was going on.

Monday's phone call i find out they've cancelled
my automatic payment (so i never paid the bill
by the due date (Dec 25th!) -- without any notice
to me) in spite of the facts that i specifically
asked them if i needed to do anything else to make
sure automatic payments were set up (they said they
were - i didn't need to do anything) and that the
bill said it was an automatic payment so don't
pay it. luckily i do have the conversation when
i switched plans recorded so i'm covered on those
points.

the nice phone person on Monday sent the whole
mess to billing and said i should send a check to
them ASAP, so i scrambled to get that done before
the Post Office closed.

don't ask me how long it takes to get through
on the phone to the insurance company... their
music recording is horrible, it's like fingernails
scraping on slate.

tip for the future government and insurance
planners: Don't do it during the holiday season!

oy...


songbird

On 12/31/2013 8:26 AM, George Shirley wrote:
> A Happy and Prosperous New Year for all who visit this newsgroup. We are
> doing our usual thing, staying home and staying sober, will watch the
> doings on TV and probably be asleep before midnight.
>
> We start anew with a Medicare Advantage Plan (old people health
> insurance) tomorrow but with a much better outfit - Kelsey/Seybold. If
> you've ever heard of them you know their reputation, the only five star
> Medicare plan in existence. We have high hopes of better care and better
> doctors.
>
> George and Miz Anne


We did the same last night, George.

Broke out some of my bread-and-butter pickles for Christmas dinner and
everyone loved them. Oldest grandson nearly swooned over Barb's Very
Berry Berry jam at breakfast one morning.

Thanks for the tip about Medicare supplement. We are currently with
AARP who seem to delight in denying coverage.

Happy, healthy New Year to you, Miz Anne, and all who read here.

gloria p

On 1/1/2014 7:25 PM, gloria p wrote:
> On 12/31/2013 8:26 AM, George Shirley wrote:
>> A Happy and Prosperous New Year for all who visit this newsgroup. We are
>> doing our usual thing, staying home and staying sober, will watch the
>> doings on TV and probably be asleep before midnight.
>>
>> We start anew with a Medicare Advantage Plan (old people health
>> insurance) tomorrow but with a much better outfit - Kelsey/Seybold. If
>> you've ever heard of them you know their reputation, the only five star
>> Medicare plan in existence. We have high hopes of better care and better
>> doctors.
>>
>> George and Miz Anne
>
>
> We did the same last night, George.
>
> Broke out some of my bread-and-butter pickles for Christmas dinner and
> everyone loved them. Oldest grandson nearly swooned over Barb's Very
> Berry Berry jam at breakfast one morning.
>
> Thanks for the tip about Medicare supplement. We are currently with
> AARP who seem to delight in denying coverage.
>
> Happy, healthy New Year to you, Miz Anne, and all who read here.
>
> gloria p
We have always had a Medicare Advantage plan, two of them have gone
under. We moved to Humana and had a good ride until 2013 when they told
us they were doubling the deductible. With that we moved to
Kelsey-Seybold, they've been in the Houston area for years and they are
local only. Of course with over 5 million people in the area they stay
busy. We don't have to get referrals because they have every doctor we
need in the two clinics closest to us and hospitals here are about one
very quarter mile it seems.

Most Advantage plans take what you get on your SS for Medicare. Ours has
docs, meds, and everything else we need. Do your research on the
Medicare website, regardless of the screw-ups of CMA, the website is
pretty much spot-on for looking up Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans.

Both clinics are within ten miles of us and the preferred pharmacy is
three blocks from our home plus the clinics both have pharmacies on site.

I've got emails in to set up meet and greet and annual physicals for
both of us, hopefully this week. Take a look.

I'm off to bed pretty soon, stayed up until 0200 last night to calm the
dog. Sounded like an artillery barrage going on up until then. The dog
and I were both under the bed.

George