Medicare is health insurance for people 65 or older. You’re first eligible to sign up for Medicare 3 months before you turn 65. You may be eligible to get Medicare earlier if you have a disability, End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), or ALS (also called Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Follow these steps to learn about Medicare, how to sign up, and your coverage options. Learn about it at your own pace.
In general, Medicare Part A helps pay for inpatient care you get in hospitals, critical access hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities. It also helps cover hospice care and some home health care.
Medicare Part B (Medical Insurance) helps cover 2 types of services:
Medically necessary services: Services or supplies that meet accepted standards of medical practice to diagnose or treat your medical condition.
Preventive services: Health care to prevent illness (like the flu) or detect it at an early stage when treatment is likely to work best.
You pay nothing for most preventive services if you get the services from a health care provider who accepts
assignment.
Medicare drug coverage
(also known as Medicare Part D) helps pay for the brand-name and generic drugs you need. It's optional and offered to everyone with Medicare by insurance companies and other private companies approved by Medicare. Even if you don’t take prescription drugs now, consider getting Medicare drug coverage to avoid paying a
late enrollment penalty
if you join a plan later.
Not all Medicare plans are the same. Medicare Supplements (Medigap) and Medicare Advantage plans work in very different ways. Many people mistake Advantage plans for Supplements—but they’re not the same.
Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap) is extra insurance you can buy from a private health insurance company to help pay your share of out-of-pocket costs in Original Medicare.
Generally, you must have Original Medicare –
Part A (Hospital Insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance) – to buy a Medigap policy.
If you have Part A and Part B, you can join a Medicare Advantage Plan, sometimes called “Part C” or an “MA plan.” This type of Medicare health plan is offered by Medicare-approved private companies that must follow rules set by Medicare. Most Medicare Advantage Plans include
drug coverage (Part D)
.
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