Medicare; a Bureaucracy of Nonsensical Paperwork

There have been enough nightmares written about the fundamental flaws in our country’s retirement and healthcare systems to fill the congressional archives. In fact, I would imagine the amount of testimony would require another floor be built to house all the reports of bumbling and mismanagement and failures by the Federal Government to deliver as promised to the senior citizens in this country.

Rather than a rehash of what we have all read, I submit to you another totally inane story about our Medicare system.

I have a friend who decided to pull the plug now that he has turned 65. He has worked, saved, and has a personal nest egg that will allow him to be comfortable although sans of frequent trips around the world.

Now this man after going and signing up for Social Security applied for his Medicare benefits as well. What he received in the mail shows just how little intelligence there is behind the desks that run our nation’s healthcare program.

From the Department of Health and Human Services the man received a welcome letter that bragged how he was in a day and age when recipients, like him, would receive more benefits than ever before. Then came these little nuggets of correspondence.

The man was advised he was required to have a “Welcome to Medicare" physical exam and was told this “must" be done within the first six months of his eligibility. Now the letter didn’t state what the ramifications of not having this “must" exam were. Surely they couldn’t then deny him his Medicare coverage could they? Surely an exam is really of little importance since he has paid his dues and is covered. Isn’t he?

We talked about how it should be of zero consequence if he was in perfect health or had every organ is his body ready to falter and fail. He had paid his dues and coverage was now as mandatory to him as it was to his paying into Social Security and Medicare all those years.

The silliness wasn’t over however. A call to the area’s Medical Center told him they would be happy to give him a standard physical and would send it to Medicare for payment. If he wanted the official “Welcome to Medicare" physical he would have to pay for that since Medicare doesn’t cover that examination. Yeh, if it wasn’t a friend’s money being thrown out the window for something that technically doesn’t matter anyway, this would be humorous.

Then to add a little skullduggery to the insaneness, this little bit of additional “no need to know" was added to the welcome letter.

Medicare advised the man they would be sending him a questionnaire asking him to advise them of all supplemental or secondary health insurance plans he currently has on himself.

This information isn’t really needed by Medicare. They are supposed to cover a retiree as provided by law. Unless they can find a way out it seems.

Talking to insurance people, what Medicare is doing is seeing if they have an individual who can be “footballed" to another insurance company to pay a portion of a claim that automatically should be paid by them. In other words; if Medicare thinks they can cut their payouts by pushing any, or some, or all of a claim onto another insurance provider they will. Supplying them with this information shouldn’t be necessary. They have an obligation to pay claims according to the guidelines regardless of what extra coverage a person has.

I can’t wait to get my Medicare letter in a few years.  I can’t wait to read how lucky I am in this day and age.