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Originally Posted by JWish
We just moved to The Villages from another state, and I just started in Medicare in December. All was set up for the other state as original Medicare, as I had researched Medicare extensively and heard lots of negatives about Advantage plans.
We are now working with a local Medicare insurance broker in The Villages, who is telling us that Advantage plans are totally different in Florida than the rest of the country, and that Villages Health is a different and amazing care system than normal care providers.
Sounds too good to be true as we would save a significant amount of money on a Florida Advantage plan, but I don’t want to fall for a sales pitch and regret it later.
Is this a different animal in Florida? Any challenges finding providers around The Villages for Advantage Plans? Any challenges finding providers accepting new patients? Does the UHC Advantage Plan travel provision really work? I’m hesitant to voluntarily join an HMO, but maybe the PPO version would be a better fit for a skeptic.
Looking for real-world experiences with it, especially from those who have been on it awhile.
Thanks for any feedback!
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A lot of discussion on this. And while I cannot speak of any specific Medicare Advantage plan, I can tell you that at MD Anderson they really like it when you have regular Medicare. No prior authorizations, just get started on therapy ASAP. Similarly, I met a woman with a Medicare Advantage plan from Arkansas who was in the middle of chemo and received a notification that her Medicare Advantage plan was dropping MD Anderson and she had no idea what she was going to do. It is probably just a negotiating tactic, but it was causing her real stress. If you travel regularly back and forth across the US you may be out of network from an Advantage plan. The benefit of an Advantage plan they are less expensive up front, the risk of an Advantage plan is that it is an insurance company whose main goal is to make a profit. Also, one important point. If you go with an Advantage plan, it is almost impossible to go back to Regular Medicare.