[villagetinker]

Tomterriff,

First we had both good and bad experiences with the Villages Health System, mine was very good, my wife's, not so much. She needed to see some specialists and the wait time for the initial 'meeting' was 2 months or more, and the first actual doctors visit was at least a month beyond that. This was far too long. We had to drop the "advantage" plan, go back to medicare and find our own PCP and specialists. This was over 3 years ago, so conditions may have improved.

Contact SHINE, SHINE - Home for unbiased information on health care in Florida. Pay very close attention to ADVANTAGE versus Medical SUPPLEMENTAL plans. Also note that you may NOT be able to go back to Medicare from a supplemental, ask questions.

If you are over 65, VHS ONLY accepts 3 United Health Care ADVANTAGE plans, make sure you are aware of the restrictions of these plans, for example, 3 years ago, we could not get coverage while visiting relatives in the entire state of Colorado!

One other item of interest, VHS specialists are NOT under the same restrictions as the PCP doctors, I use 2 VHS specialists with Medicare.

The "villages hospital" is a separate entity from VHS, and does accept Medicare and supplemental insurance.

The entire system is very confusing.

Hope this helps.