Information concerning coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Insurance, and Social Security
MEDICARE, MEDICAID, TRICARE, VA,
ETC
1. Medicare
- Official U.S. Government Medicare Site
Medicare.gov is a consumer beneficiary
Website that provides access to information about Medicare, Medicare health
plans, contact information and publications, as well as information about
health care fraud and abuse...
http://www.medicare.gov/
2. Medicare
Prescription Drug Discount Cards
You can get a Medicare-approved drug discount card if
- you
have Medicare Part A and/or Part B, and
- you
don’t have outpatient prescription drug benefits through Medicaid (your
state may call this Medical Assistance).
If you’re enrolled in a state
pharmacy assistance program (not Medicaid), you can still get a card.
If you already have prescription
drug coverage through your current health insurance, or you already get
discounts on your prescriptions, review your coverage closely to see if this
discount card will save you more money on your prescriptions. Find all the Medicare
Drug Discount Cards available
for your area.
3. Medicare Participating
Physician Directory
The
Participating Physician Directory enables users to search by specialty and
location among the 90 percent of all U.S. physicians who accept Medicare
payment rates and charge beneficiaries only the standard, 20 percent
coinsurance rate (known as "participating providers").
4.
Medicare Health
Plans - Compare
Medicare Health Plan Compare helps
you obtain detailed information on Medicare's health plan options. By
"comparison shopping," you can find the plans that are best for you.
Different comparisons you can make for plans include:
- Cost and Benefits covered
- Quality of the plans in keeping members healthy or treating them when sick
- Information on people leaving managed care plans
http://www.medicare.gov/MPPF/Include/DataSection/Questions/SearchOptions.asp
5. Medicare Health Plans - Compare in Spanish
This Spanish-language version of
Medicare Health Plan Compare includes all information on plan benefits, costs,
quality, member satisfaction, and dis-enrollment rates, as well as assistance
in navigating the website.
http://www.medicare.gov/MPPF/Include/DataSection/Questions/SearchOptions.asp?language=Spanish
6. Medicare’s Nursing Home
Compare
Users can
get information on the last three surveys for each of the 16,500 nursing homes participating
in Medicare and Medicaid, allowing them to compare performance over time. The site also includes information on
the number and type of residents, facility ownership, staffing levels and mix,
and ratings of each facility in comparison to State and national averages.
The Medicare Rights Center (MRC)
is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that older adults and
people with disabilities with Medicare get good, affordable health care.
http://www.medicarerights.org/
8. Medicaid
Medicaid is a jointly funded,
Federal-State health insurance program for certain low-income and needy people.
It covers approximately 36 million individuals including children, the aged,
blind, and/or disabled, and people who are eligible to receive federally
assisted income maintenance payments. This site provides a program overview and
state specific information and contacts. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidGenInfo
9. MedPac (Medicare Payment Advisory
Commission)
The Medicare Payment Advisory
Commission (MedPAC) is an independent federal body to advise the U.S. Congress
on issues affecting the Medicare program. In addition to advising the
Congress on payments to health plans participating in the Medicare+Choice program
and providers in Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program, MedPAC is also
tasked with analyzing access to care, quality of care, and other issues
affecting Medicare.
10. Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services (formerly HCFA)
The Health Care Financing
Administration (HCFA) administers Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children's
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In addition to providing health insurance,
HCFA also performs a number of quality-focused activities, including regulation
of laboratory testing (CLIA), development of coverage
policies, and quality-of-care improvement. HCFA
maintains oversight of the survey and certification of nursing homes and continuing care providers (including home
health agencies, intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded, and
hospitals).
11. Medicare Intermediary-Carrier Directory
Names, addresses, and other
contact information for Medicare Part A Intermediaries and
Part B Carriers
Section I: Part A
Intermediaries and Part B Carriers by State
Section II: Part A Intermediaries and Part B Carriers
Section III: Commercial and Independents - Parts A & B
Section IV: Regional Home Health Intermediaries, Durable
Medical Equipment Regional
Carriers, Common Working File Host Contractors, Rural Health Clinics
12. Medicare Coverage Rules-
Durable Medical Equipment
This site provides detailed information on Medicare rules
governing coverage for the following
forms of durable medical equipment:
- White Cane
For Use By A Blind Person,
- Home Use Of
Oxygen,
-
Power-Operated Vehicles That May Be Used As Wheelchairs,
- Specially
Sized Wheelchairs,
-
Self-Contained Pacemaker Monitors,
- Seat Lift,
- Home Blood
Glucose Monitors,
- Infusion
Pumps, Safety Roller,
- Pneumatic
Compression Devices (Used For Lymphedema),
- Continuous
Positive Airway Pressure (Cpap), Hospital Beds,
- Air-Fluidized
Bed,
-
Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulators (Tens),
-
Intrapulmonary Percussive Ventilator (Ipv),
- Vagus Nerve
Stimulation For Treatment Of Seizures,
- Speech Generating
Devices,
-
Non-Implantable Pelvic Floor Electrical Stimulator,
- Hydrophilic
Contact Lenses,
- Electrical
Continence Aid,
- Scleral
Shell,
- Carotid Sinus
Nerve Stimulator,
- Electronic
Speech Aids,
- Cardiac
Pacemakers,
- Intraocular Lenses
(Iols),
- Electrical
Nerve Stimulators,
- Parenteral
Nutrition Therapy,
- Enteral
Nutrition Therapy,
- Nutritional
Supplementation,
- Phrenic Nerve
Stimulator,
- Cochlear
Implantation,
- Artificial
Hearts And Related Devices,
- Tracheostomy
Speaking Valve,
- Urinary
Drainage Bags
13.
How To Choose a
Health Plan
Here's a
ton of information to help you make an informed health plan choice:
Choosing
and Using a Health Plan, presents information to help make sense of your
health insurance choices, and how to get the most out of your health plan.
Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, is the lead agency charged with supporting research designed to
improve the quality of health care, reduce its cost, and broaden access to
essential services. AHCPR's broad programs of research bring practical,
science-based information to medical practitioners and to consumers and other
health care purchasers.
TRICARE Help Page
provides links to beneficiary information, answers to frequently asked
questions about the TRICARE program, as well as information on how to file a
claim under this program.
Department of
Defense Military Health System’s Web site provides comprehensive
information on TRICARE, a health care program for members of the uniformed
services and their families, and survivors and retired members and their
families.
Department of Labor
is charged with preparing the American workforce for new and better jobs, and
ensuring the adequacy of America's workplaces. It is responsible for the
administration and enforcement of over 180 Federal statutes. These legislative
mandates and the regulations produced to implement them cover a wide variety of
workplace activities for nearly 10 million employers and well over 100 million
workers, including protecting workers' wages, health and safety, employment and
pension rights; promoting equal employment opportunity; administering job
training, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation programs;
strengthening free collective bargaining and collecting, analyzing and
publishing labor and economic statistics.
Medicare Publications Online You can view,
print, or order many publications (listed) online or by calling
1-800-MEDICARE
(1-800-633-4227). The fastest way to get a publication is to view and
print it from this website. If you order online (or through 1-800-MEDICARE),
you will receive your order within 3 weeks.
All of the publications are Adobe
Acrobat version 5.0 accessible or in text only format. You will need Adobe
Reader software to view the Adobe Acrobat PDF files.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(formerly HCFA) is the Federal agency that administers the Medicare,
Medicaid, and Child Health Insurance programs. Through these three programs,
the Health Care Financing Administration provides insurance for over 74 million
Americans.
Show Me My Choices!
lists all Federal Employee Health Insurance Benefits plans by state and
includes plan-specific information on benefits, rates, and quality indicators.
Guide to Federal
Employees Health Benefit Plans helps users who are eligible to
participate in the Federal Employee Health Insurance Benefits insurance program
narrow their list of health plan choices and will rank plans based on stated preferences.
Put Me on the Fast
Track! allows users who are eligible to participate in the Federal Employee
Health Insurance Benefits insurance program the opportunity to download individual
health plan brochures and the Federal Employee Health Insurance Benefits guide.
This site is the home of
BenefitsCheckUp, a free, easy-to-use service to identify federal and state
assistance programs to which you specifically may be entitled. Here's how
it works: You take 10 or 15 minutes to enter information about your financial
situation into an online questionnaire. Then, BenefitsCheckUp explains what
benefit programs you may be eligible for and how to apply for them.
http://www.benefitscheckup.org/
SOCIAL
SECURITY, SSD, SSI, ETC
This is the official web site of the Social Security Administration with information on retirement,
disability, survivors and supplemental security income
benefits.
2. Social Security
Retirement Benefits
Information
on retirement benefits, including retirement age(s), benefits options,
applications and documents needed.
Also includes a Retirement Planner which allows you
to explore a variety of retirement scenarios using a range of assumptions about
your future earnings or when you stop working. The Planner not only tells you
how to qualify for Social Security benefits, but it also includes Benefit Calculators that
help you calculate your own benefit estimates.
http://www.ssa.gov/retirement/
3. SSD
(Social Security Disability) Benefits
Social Security
Disability Insurance pays benefits to you and certain members of your family if
you are "insured" meaning that you worked long
enough and paid Social Security taxes.
http://www.ssa.gov/dibplan/index.htm
4. SSI
(Supplemental Security Income) Benefits
SSI is a Federal income
supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security
taxes). It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have
little or no income; and it provides cash to meet basic needs for food,
clothing, and shelter.
http://www.ssa.gov/notices/supplemental-security-income/
5. Disability
Evaluation (Medical) Disability
Evaluation Under Social Security
(Also known as The
Blue Book), this site discusses the medical criteria for evaluating Social
Security disability claims. This publication includes Adult and
Childhood Listings of Impairments. These listings are just part of how Social
Security decides if someone is disabled. Past work experience, severity of
medical conditions, age, education and work skills are also considered..
http://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/
6. Disability
Criteria for Respiratory Impairments
This site lists
and discusses all the respiratory impairments that may medically qualify one
for disability. It also lists all
the specific medical criteria that are acceptable as qualifying disability for
each category of impairment.
http://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/3.00-Respiratory-Adult.htm
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Last update
10/17/2007
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2001-2004, 2007
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