Primary Care physician
 

We moved to the Villages on April 5 after putting our house in Northern Virginia on the market. We are now homeless, hopefully not for long.

We need to find a good primary care physician so we can line up our health care team.

We have Medicare and Tricare.

Seeking suggestions on how to procede.

Thanks in advance

I do not believe you will be able to use the Villages health care system, but you should call them to confirm, as far as I know they only accept 3 or 4 ADVANTAGE plans, no Medicare. I will leave it to others for Primary care physician, we use one in Leesburg, about a 20 to 25 minute drive from our house. If you want to try to limit your drive (or golf cart ride) you may want to state an area where you are looking for a house.

not familiar with Tricare...

We switched to United Healthcare, the Villages, HMO when we moved here....all our doctors are outside The Villages medical system...we were turned off by the infrastructure of that group

you might want to consider Dr. Peter Ankoh as a primary...we've been very happy with him and the specialists that he refers us to when needed

We switched to United Healthcare, The Villages, PPO and then HMO when we moved here 7 years ago.....all our doctors are inside The Villages medical system....we were turned on by the infrastructure of that group.

In short, you will find every opinion possible here...pro, con, in between. Do your due diligence by talking to the various health offices, health organizations both in and out of the system to make sure your needs are addressed. Nobody on here knows your health needs or will take responsibility if you make a choice based on opinion here and you will get a varied and wide range of passionate opinion.

Thanks for the feedback. How do you get into the Medicare advantage system? I understand there are offices in the squares and one of my friends here said you can just go to one of the health centers and sign up there.

If you are interested in using The Villages Health with Medicare Advantage then your choices for Medicare Advantage are limited to 2 providers: UHC Medicare Advantage or Florida Blue Medicare Advantage. They will not accept any other Medicare Advantage Plan. You can get information and signup at the Villages Health Primary Care Centers that have insurance resource centers. I am not sure they all do. The one by Pinellas Plaza does. They are staffed with representatives from both UHC and Florida Blue. You originally mentioned Tricare. I do not know what your options are with Tricare.

We have used the Villages Health System for several years with basic Medicare and Tricare for Life (TFL). Not sure about acceptance of the standard Tricare, but the Villages system does indeed still accept basic Medicare with TFL - no hesitation, no questions, no attempt to sign us up for any of the Advantage plans. We like our primary doc and being able to use the VHS doctors/clinics is handy; we can also go to any other doctor/clinic we desire (so long as accepted by Medicare/TFL without having to ask the "Mother-May-I" of our primary doc.

Here is a list of primary care groups that I created. I make no claim as to its accuracy. Note that there are many more primary care physicians who may be the only doctor in the office along with a PA or NP.

I am more than pleased with my Villages PCP. My care is exceptional.

My only complaint is that I will never/seldom get an appointment on relatively short notice except with a PA. Although my PCP is still taking on new patients.

Near the bottom of this page you can see the plans The Villages Health accepts, including Tricare

Agent Corner Partnership Opportunities - The Villages Health

Advantage is just one kind of Medicare plan. I have a number of retired military neighbors that use The Villages Health. I assume they are using Tricare to cover what their Medicare plan doesn't. They have used Villages Health for a number of years and like it.

If you call Villages Health when you get here they will give you a tour. They also have Medicare classes to explain how advantage works. I'm sure they would prefer you choose advantage and used The Villages Health but nonetheless the course when I took it 8 years ago was informative.

We've been with the Villages Health since we moved here eight years ago and like it very much. In any case, though, do a lot of checking. You have many choices for healthcare here.

Nice post. Helpful supported by documentation and even points to next steps. A rarity for sure on this subject. PS the overwhelming majority of posters that do not like The Villages Health Care never had it. Many are reluctant to switch their insurance - understandable. But that does not make TV Health Care inferior, no good, etc.

TY for this list. A good start for me as well