Hospital & Cancer Protection Plans

Medicare Advantage Plans come with several positives and a few drawbacks. The positives are low monthly premiums, and often Medicare Advantage plans bundle medical coverage, drug coverage, and extra benefits like dental, vision, and hearing aid coverage. They also all have out-of-pocket limits, which cap how much you could pay for medical care to a certain amount, typically between $3,000-$9,000 per year (depending on the plan you select)

One problem is that the out-of-pocket limit can be unaffordable especially for people on a fixed income. Certain medical care can be unaffordable too. For example, with most Medicare Advantage plans, you’d pay $1,600-$2,800 if you were hospitalized. For cancer treatment, often you’ll pay 20% of the cost. This often causes clients to reach their out-of-pocket limit. Unfortunately that limit resets each year in January.

Protecting Against Hospitalization Costs

Because the cost of hospitalization and cancer care can be unaffordable, many clients choose to buy an additional insurance policy to help protect against these costs. These policies can be paired with Medicare Advantage Plans to provide a higher level of coverage and still maintain a low monthly premium. Hospital Protection plans can pay all of the cost of your hospitalization, and start around $20 per month.

When purchased a hospital protection plan, sometimes called a hospital indemnity plan pays you directly when you have a claim. Often we will match the amount of payment to the cost you would incur with your Advantage plan. So If the cost of hospitalization would be $2,500, we will purchase that much hospital protection coverage to match.

Protecting Against Cancer Costs

Policies can also help protect against other potentially unaffordable medical care. The most common addition to a hospital protection plan that our clients are choosing is cancer protection coverage. A cancer policy works in the same way, in that when you have a claim the company send a check directly to you for the among of coverage you have selected. Our most common choice for this coverage is a $5,000 cancer benefit, which costs about $10 per month. Clients can tailor the amount of coverage they buy, from as little as $2,500 of benefit to as much as $100,000.

Summary

While Medicare Advantage plans have several positives, a draw back is that copays and co-insurance can be unaffordable for clients if they get very sick. If this is a concern, a hospital or cancer protection plan could be a wise, and affordable, way to protect from these risks.