Its a financial decision only. True story from CoachK's hospital: Large Intl mfg in the city switched their pensioners health care insurance to UHC Advantage. UHC came around to negotiation, and told the hospital that since UHC had a large population of patients, they wanted to pay lower reimbursement rates than Medicare The entire hospital system dropped UHC Advantage contract and all the retires lost their insurance coverage with their PCPs. (currently unknown is if the negotiations have since arrived at a different reimbursement rate or not) insurance rates are all negotiated with carriers, and Medicare is the lowest rate provide. Without govt reimbursements, hospitals can't survive only on Medicare, so there must be a mix of private and medicare patients to cover total costs of the hospital, and pay their bond holders / rent building owners the market rates as well.
So hmmm, what did the hospital do? They created their own Medicare Advantage plan for local residents
Its all about the money if you want the hospital to afford providing quality medical care, as many of you have posted about, most have to have more than Medicare or you get the the pulse check only.
Pick wisely the class of 58
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