Of course, your doctor plays a vital role in your health care decisions. But you are the one who chooses your doctor and, more importantly, chooses whether to adhere to his or her recommendations concerning treatments, medications, medical procedures, diet, exercise, and overall lifestyle.
With Original Medicare, you can choose to go to any doctor in the country that accepts Original Medicare, as almost all doctors do. And with Original Medicare, you can choose whichever hospital your own research tells you provides the best chance for the best health outcome for the health issue you have.
A Medicare Advantage plan will take the health care decisions out of you and your doctor's hands and instead base your health care on the cost of treatment. Your health care decisions will instead be made by a Medicare Director who functions more as an accountant than as a healthcare professional.
Instead of paying your medical bills, Medicare (i.e. the federal government) will send a fixed amount of money every month to your Medicare Advantage plan. Here's the problem... if the Medicare Advantage plan spends less on your health care than what it is paid by Medicare to provide your care, the plan gets to keep the savings as profit. So a Medicare Advantage plan has an incentive to spend less on your health care, and thereby provide less health care to you when you need it, just to make more money for themselves.
By delaying or denying the care you require when you need it. And the more costly, and likely necessary the care, the more likely the Medicare Advantage plan is to delay or deny it.
As an example, if two patients have the exact same degenerative arthritis condition in their knee and have the same doctor, one would be able to get a knee replacement surgery if necessary, while the other may not be able to get a knee replacement. How is this possible? If one patient has Original Medicare and the other has a Medicare Advantage plan, there is a very good chance that the patient with Original Medicare will be approved for the knee replacement surgery, while the patient with the Medicare Advantage plan will most likely have his or her knee replacement surgery denied or delayed.
This is because the Medicare Advantage plan will apply a much stricter set of coverage guidelines than Original Medicare in order to spend less on their patient's health care and, in doing so, turn a greater profit. Remaining with Original Medicare and saying "No" to Medicare Advantage is the path to giving yourself the best chance for the best health outcome at a reasonable and predictable cost.
Combined with a Medicare Supplement from a proven and trustworthy company, such as Mutual of Omaha, you will be able to choose your doctor and get the health care you need at a reasonable and predictable cost.
Charles Bradshaw is the President and Founder of Medicare Answer Center and the author of "Medicare is Not One-Size Fits All" and "The Medicare Advantage Trap." He can be reached at charles@bradshawseniorinsurance..com