When you sign up for Medicare Advantage, your insurance company will replace Medicare as your Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B plan provider, for the most part. Medicare Advantage offers most of the benefits of Original Medicare, as well as other medical benefits, so it essentially replaces Original Medicare for you, giving you greater coverage and probably better peace of mind.

Medicare Advantage conflicts with some kinds of healthcare insurance. You cannot be enrolled in both Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement (Medigap) plans. You also won’t be able to keep a union health insurance plan or a health insurance policy from your employer at the same time as Medicare Advantage. They simply overlap with one another and will not be compatible according to Medicare’s regulations. You will have to choose between one or the other.

As you will see when you read more about these plans, they are powerful and comprehensive enough that you probably don’t need any other kind of health insurance plan to accompany them. They can do enough for you on their own that you should not need additional medical insurance, in most cases.

Now that you know the basics of Medicare Advantage, let’s talk about the specifics of the medical benefits that they provide. When you enroll in Medicare Advantage, no matter where in the country you live, no matter how much you pay for your plan, and no matter which insurer you buy your plan from, you always get at least the same base benefits. This foundational coverage is known as guaranteed coverage, so you can always expect it to be included, unless Medicare changes up the base benefits at some point. No announcements have come out of Medicare regarding changes to the base benefits, though, so don’t expect any changes to occur for a very long time.

What’s included in the base Medicare Advantage plan? We already said before that all Medicare Advantage serve as replacement for Original Medicare. That means that they cover the majority of Medicare Part A and Part B benefits. They will cover medical expenses for hospitalization, doctor’s office visits, nursing care, at-home care, some prescription medications, some emergency services, preventative care, hospital service costs, lab testing and more.

Those are the Part A and Part B benefits, and they include everything you would get from the Original Medicare plan except for hospice care benefits. However, since you still have to be enrolled in Original Medicare to get coverage from a Medicare Advantage plan, then you will receive hospice benefits from Original Medicare. You won’t have to worry about paying for that on your own.

In addition to these Part A and Part B benefits, all Medicare Advantage plans include in their base coverage benefits for any emergency medical services that are not already covered. This can include ER visits, care received while outside the hospital, ambulance transport, ambulance services, and other lifesaving care.

You also get coverage for any urgently needed care. This can encompass a large number of services and expenses and will really be determined on a situation-by-situation basis.

This is all basic coverage and what you are guaranteed every time you enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan. There are other kinds of Advantage plans beyond just the basic ones. The most common Advantage plan actually includes more than just basic coverage. Standard Medicare Advantage plans will have the basic benefits to offer you along with coverage for prescription drugs that goes far beyond what you get with Medicare Part B. This drug coverage is known as its own, separate plan, called Medicare Part D. You can buy it on its own, but many Advantage plans include Part D coverage to give you more complete protection against common medical expenses.

With Part D coverage in your Advantage plan, you will now be covered for most of the common, generic drugs that seniors need to get, with refills costing you next to nothing, in many cases. You also get some coverage for name brand drugs and expensive medications, but the coverage level is much lower on those. Still, any sort of coverage can help when you are dealing with expensive prescription drugs.

A third kind of Medicare Advantage is able to provide you with checkup benefits. This means it will cover routine visits to the general healthcare practitioner, the dentist, the optometrist and the hearing specialist (audiologist). You can be covered for various tests, visits, x-rays, scans, and even some durable medical equipment costs. Prescription eyeglasses and hearing aids are included in its benefits package. Some Advantage plans that come with checkup coverage will take care of the cost of various dental services, like bridgework, cavity fillings, crowns, tooth replacement, emergency dental work and even orthodontic care.

Some insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans will allow you to add coverage to your Advantage plan to include benefits that are not typically part of the Advantage plan package. You may be able to get these at a cheaper cost when added to the Advantage plan than if you were to sign up for those services on their own. When you are comparing Medicare Advantage plans and providers, be sure to look at these added coverage options to find out if any of them might benefit you.

You will have some options that help you receive coverage no matter where you live and who your insurance company has partnerships with. Most insurance companies offer several network options with their Advantage plans. These do not give you greater or fewer medical benefits, but they do affect who your coverage is provided base on where you go for care.

HMOs are the most common and most basic kind of Medicare Advantage network option. They are also very affordable, which is why they are so popular. An HMO will only cover you within your network area. You will find many Medicare Advantage plans listed as HMOs, and that tells you that you get no coverage from your plan if you go outside of your insurance company’s network area.

Next up are PPOs. These are slightly less common but are still pretty easy to find. PPO Medicare Advantage plans will give you medical benefits in full while within the network and then partial benefits outside of the network. Of course, they cost a bit more than the HMO plan, thanks to their higher level of coverage.

HMO-POS are a bit more flexible and will be priced between the HMO and PPO plans. They cover you fully on the network and then discount any off-network medical care that you receive, acting as a discount plan rather than an insurance plan outside of your insurer’s network.

You may also be able to choose a Special Needs Medicare Advantage plan. This gives you powerful coverage and low, low rates, and you can enroll in one of these if you qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. If you have questions about eligibility, please give us a call. We will be happy to advise you and provide answers.

Bear in mind that not every insurance company will offer all of these options. You are more like to find HMO plans being offered in urban and well-populated areas. PPO plans are more likely to be sold in rural areas and sparely-populated sections of the country where healthcare providers are fewer and farther between.

Let’s look now at some health insurance companies that operate throughout the United States and that offer some decent member benefits, low prices or just a great customer service experience for their clients. These are all health insurance providers that operate in at least a couple of states and that sell Medicare Advantage plans:

Medicare Advantage plans are priced by the insurance companies, as we said before. That means that the prices are going to be all over the place sometimes. There will be some insurance companies that will charge way more than others for what is basically the same medical insurance plan with the same benefits. If you want to avoid paying too much for your plan, then you should be using our site and the free plan finder here to get a list of Advantage plans that are being sold in your area.

We suggest using our site because it gives you local search results. That is important since the price of the plans is partially determined by where you live. People in New York will pay a different price for a Cigna Medicare Advantage plan than people in Tennessee will, for example. The cost of living and the kind of competition in the area you live help to inform the pricing, so you definitely want to get local quotes to ensure that your pricing information is accurate.

The prices on Medicare Advantage plans will change periodically. They increase and even decrease at times, and you can keep track of all that by using our site. We will give you accurate quotes for Medicare Advantage plans to ensure that you have what you need to make an informed choice. We want you to feel good about the insurance plan that you pick and feel like you got a good deal. You can do that if you have looked at all of your available options and compared them to find out which one will save you the most money. Our site makes that simple to do by giving you a list of plans to sort through.

The list to Medicare Advantage plans on our site will be provided when you search. We don’t store prices on our site, and this ensures that we only provide up-to-date pricing details. Come and check us as often as you like to find out how much Medicare Advantage insurance plans will cost you in your area of the country and to see which insurance companies are offering you the most value for their plans.