Medicare Advantage programs are not for everyone. Check carefully if you are covered if you travel very much. Are your doctors part of their network? And you may not be covered for out-of-area doctors, like seeing a specialist in another area.

Check the local county office on aging for the SHIP program (might go under other names), which provides free Medicare counseling.

Good advice. My MAP will mirror the services and provider network I've used for the past 16 years.

I'm very grateful for the retiree insurance that I decided to take. Very good benefits, and covers everything.

DH and I had Medicare Advantage plans for several years after reaching age 65. I finally got tired of fewer and fewer plans to choose from, increasing premiums and increasing co-pays, and not having my doctors and hospital! (we live in an area where only one hospital serves many of the towns around us) as part of their plan. So, we switched to Original Medicare and a supplement plan. We were very lucky because many times one can't do so if one has health problems. You can get Original Medicare and a supplement plan at age 65 without having to qualify due to your health, but, after that, you have to be able to pass the supplement plan's list of qualifications, healthwise. Something I didn't know until years after signing up for Medicare Advantage. Only if you are quite healthy, does an Advantage plan make sense. And, since declining health usually accompanies aging, it can get very costly to be covered by an Advantage plan.

I received the Plan Guide for the MA plan my former employer will be handing me off to when I turn 65. It's a PPO but there is no difference in the amount of co-pay/reimbursement for any medical services whether you're In or Out of Network. In fact, any out of network provider is eligible for reimbursement as long as they participate in Medicare and accept "The Plan". I was confused since my current policy penalizes me for going out of network and expressly will not pay at certain medical facilities not in their network. I called a representative and checked on every doctor we've used in the past 25 years and facilities we'd avoided because they were out of network. Only one doctor had refused this new Plan but their office had submitted for reimbursement indicating that they wanted to participate. The MA rep said they would contact this office for clarification and get back to me. All 3 area hospital are participants whereas only one was in the current plan.

This really does seem to be a positive evolution in providing medical services but I'm sure there are some pitfalls; I'm just not seeing them.

JRB451, you can check whether or not a doctor, other provider, or hospital accepts Medicare by going to the Medicare web site.

The absolute BEST book for explaining Medicare, Supplement Plans (also known as MediGap), and Medicare Advantage plans is Medicare Demystified: A Physician Helps Save You Time, Money, and Frustration written by Dr. Ronald Kahan.

This MA plan is not listed on the Medicare website because it is only open to members of my current plan which is from a university that was self-insured. It concerned me at first when I went to the Medicare web site to do the comparison search and didn't see it. In this MA plan a provider can be listed as accepting Medicare but refuse to accept The Plan. In this case it was only the one doctor.

Well now, I have a different story on the UHC Advantage Plan. Seems as though none of my medical service providers want to play along with this plan and refuse to submit billing and in some cases, see me as a patient. UHC offered to set me up with an entire new set of doctors. "No thanks." I replied. I have a 20+ year relationship with them whereas I've never had a policy with you. I switched to a BCBS Supplement G plan with RX.

Great concept UHC had. Too bad the reality was a nightmare.