Prince Edward Islanders are enroute to the premiers’ meeting in Halifax on board a bus they have named the Medicare Express. Premiers Robert Ghiz of P.E.I. and Brad Wall of Saskatchewan will release proposal of their health innovation working group at the meeting. The P.E.I. Health Coalition is joining a rally organized by the Canadian Health Coalition. The Medical Express is aimed to stress the fact that the public Medicare system has a great significance according to P.E.I. coalition chair Mary Boyd. They want to assure the Islanders that they are we are here to guard against illegal practices n Medicare Plans to keep it as a quality care system. The group wants to promote the use of private medicine as a way for provinces to save money.

The national pharmacare program will also be ascertaining that P.E.I. will not become a havenot province where quality of medical care with declining health transfers is concerned.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

A recent University of Chicago Medicine program will analyze whether an updated version of the traditional general practitioner can lessen expenses together with improving care for these patients with the help of a $6.1 million grant. Patients who are repeatedly hospitalized account for an uneven amount of health care expenditure in the United States.

In this new model, funded by a Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare insurance & Medicaid Innovation, multidisciplinary teams led by a comprehensive care physician (CCP) will care for patients in both outpatient and inpatient settings. By bettering an individual’s care in a consistent manner after a hospital stay and strengthening the bond between doctor and patient, the model plans to provide better care at affordable cost.  This model is based on 15 years of research by David Meltzer, MD, PhD, associate professor and chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine and colleagues on the varying medical work force in the United States. Health care providers increasingly rely on specialized physicians known as hospitalists to care for inpatients, while primary care doctors are less likely to see their patients while they are hospitalized. The proposal is focused on long-stay nursing facility residents who are enrolled in the Medicare Plan and Medicaid programs, with the aim of reducing preventable inpatient hospitalizations.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

A recent report by Transgenomic Inc. has announced that their Clopidogrel Genetic Absorption Activation Panel or C-GAAP or Plavix response test will be covered by Medicare Plans .  Transgenomic’s test recognizes dissimilarity in the ABCB1 and CYP2C19 genes, the presence of which signals a considerable chance that a patient will not respond properly to Plavix.  The exclusiveness of Transgenomic’s test is due to the fact that it is the only one which also tests for difference in the ABCB1 gene.

An anti-blood clotting drug, Plavix, is a drug sold by Bristol-Myers and Sanofi-Aventis and prescribed to patients to lessen the risk of heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death. Plavix lost patent individuality in May 2012, permitting generic versions to enter the U.S. market.  This is projected to boost uptake of the drug even more and result in even bigger demand for Plavix response testing.

The recent news about Medicare coverage for the use of C-GAAP may facilitate the progress of Transgenomic’s awareness-driving efforts and will surely improve the likelihood that physicians will use it.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

A recent study analyzed national survey on consumer experiences with health coverage and evaluated the responses of Medicare beneficiaries to nonelderly adults encompassed by private coverage. The study by Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis and coauthors, published as a Health Affairs Web First article, discovered that those in the Medicare group were more content with their insurance, and there was less probability of them complaining regarding cost- or access-related problems.

The data for the study data was derived from The Commonwealth Fund 2010 Health Insurance Survey, a nationwide telephone survey of adults nineteen or older. Apart from evaluating non-Medicare and Medicare beneficiaries, the researchers looked for disparity in experience between those with traditional Medicare and those with private Medicare Advantage plans.

The study found that eight percent of Medicare beneficiaries judged their insurance as fair or poor weighed against 20 percent of nonelderly adults with employer insurance and 33 percent purchasing insurance on the individual market. The percentage of working adults with employer-sponsored coverage reported at least one access problem due to cost was comparatively more than elderly adults with Medicare Plans . While talking about access to a primary provider, 64 percent of Medicare beneficiaries and 51 percent of those with employer-based insurance held that they had a regular doctor or place of care.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

The issue of Medicare Plans reform is devastating as Medicare confronts enormous structural deficits. If successful solutions to control its costs are not executed, seniors will face automatic benefit diminution when the Medicare Part A Trust Fund becomes bankrupt in 2024, or working Americans will be required to pay much higher taxes to keep the program working.a

A reform that moves Medicare to a “premium support” model which offers government health care support for seniors with the help of a defined contribution is the right one. Such a reform would generate a competitive marketplace in which seniors can select from among competing plans offering Medicare Plan benefits. Such a reform will ensure better value for seniors by cutting down the cost of health care delivery without forgoing its quality.

Funding Medicare through premium support is essential, but inadequate. Congress needs to re-target limited financial resources to those who require them most. This implies continuing and increasing income adjustment also termed as means testing, which would lessen the amount of federal support that wealthier beneficiaries get for their health care benefits, based on their retirement income. In the face of dangerous deficits, it is no longer practical to bring about a highly unreasonable universal entitlement program.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

Well Care Health Plans, Inc. announced about its accord with Humana Inc. to gain select assets of Arcadian Health Plan, Inc.’s Desert Canyon Community Care Medicare Advantage plans in Arizona. This is part of a government-required divestiture for Humana to complete its acquisition of Arcadian Health as announced earlier. As per the agreement, Desert Canyon members in Mohave and Yavapai Counties will become Well Care of Arizona members on January 1, 2013.

There will be no change in the plan benefits and coverage of Desert Canyon Medicare Plans members in 2012. Desert Canyon will inform members about 2013 benefits and coverage. Well Care will work in association with Desert Canyon to ensure a smooth transition.

This acquisition makes Arizona the 12th state in which WellCare offers Medicare Supplement  plans. As of March 31, 2012, WellCare provided service to about 150,000 Medicare Advantage members in 11 states and about 10,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members in Arizona.

WellCare Health Plans, Inc., Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, offers managed care services to government-sponsored health care programs, focusing on Medicaid and Medicare Insurance Plan. WellCare offers a range of health plans for families, children, and the aged, blind, and disabled, as well as prescription drug plans.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

Canadians holding red umbrellas to signify they’re covered under Medicare Supplement will gather in cities across the country to call on Canada’s premiers to get the federal government back to the health accord discussing table.

The National Day of Action for a 2014 Health Accord, planned by the Council of Canadians, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, provincial health coalitions, unions and advocacy groups, is going to take place a week prior to Canada’s premiers sit down in Halifax to discuss Medicare Plans at the Council of the Federation summer meeting.

In December, the Harper government moved to present federal financing for Medicare and then left the debate to the provinces. It’s a critical time for the people of Canada when they are reorganizing the facet of health care as it advances towards a more incorporated communication and teamwork approach. A similar teamwork and incorporation is required on the political level, where communities are discussing to their premiers, and premiers are, in return expecting the federal government to provide leadership and the direction to financial support required to get at this level.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has put forward a rule to augment pay to family physicians by seven percent to support primary care doctors,, and also to pay other primary care physicians between three and five percent more. This rule will be part of the updated payment policies under the Medicare Supplement Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), which will come into effect in the calendar year of 2013. Medicare Plans pays more than one million physicians and practitioners that provide vital health care to recipients of Medicare Plan under the MPFS.

The main intention of this rise under MPFS is to endorse high quality, patient centered care. As per this rule, CMS has recommended to pay for the care needed by a patient to transition back to society after release from a hospital or nursing facility stay. To delineate this plan, CMS recommended making a separate payment to the patient’s community physician or practitioner to establish patient care for 30 days after a hospital or nursing facility stay.

The public has been asked to comment on how Medicare Advantage Plans can make out the full range of services provided by physicians and practitioners, either by face-to-face meetings or out of office patient care, with the aim to better overall quality.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

A new website has been started by Inter Valley Health Plan, a not-for-profit, federally qualified, Medicare Advantage health plan bonded with Medicare. The new website named “For Health and Living” to assist individuals to have access to resources at no cost and to help them live a healthy life. The site will focus on topics relating to Medicare Advantage Plan, work, retirement, new business start-ups, etc. There will be an option called “Countdown to Medicare,” which permits visitors to feed their birth date and receive key dates to keep in mind such as when to sign up for Medicare Plans , what notices expected to come from Medicare and when they will come, how to look for a Medicare health plan, what to look for, when to enroll, facts about Part D, and more.

It will stress on all facets of physical health and well-being, like nutrition, exercise, and care giving. Moreover, there will be a Wellness Library providing information for visitors to live a healthy life.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.

Aetna has been awarded the Medicare Advantage Plan contract from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas or TRS, which will be in effect from January 1, 2013.

Aetna confirmed that as part of its ongoing relationship with TRS, the company will enroll eligible TRS-Care participants in an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan intended to provide better benefits at a lower cost than their recent benefits arrangement. Eligible TRS-Care participants who partake in an Aetna Medicare Supplement plan will benefit from lesser premiums than the present TRS-Care premiums, a considerably lower deductible healthy lifestyle coaching and access to other programs to help members stay healthy and address their health conditions and a standard health club membership at no extra cost, the company reported.

Aetna, Inc. is an American managed health care company, offering a variety of traditional and consumer directed health care insurance products and associated services, including medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, group life, long-term care, and disability plans, and medical management abilities.

For more information please visit us @ www.medigap4seniors.com, , or call us at 888-502-5553 to speak with one of our Medicare experts.