Statements arrive in the mail, claiming to show what is not covered by Medicare. Alarming, because they don’t really say you have to pay the vendor…these outfits often generate a Medicare bill, send it off, and then refrain from charging the amounts Big Brother declines to pay. Then the vendor drops the amount the statement says they’re charging, so you don’t really owe that. Quite.
But meanwhile, you also have private insurance, which may (or may not) cover all (or some) of the amounts Medicare declines to cover.
You can’t tell from a given statement what part of that is what! You just have to wait — weeks or months! — until the vendor gets around to generating its most recent coherent bill.
Even then, you’re likely to have to guess what’s owed and what’s covered.
Right now Medicare says it’s billing me $1,057 and $658…for services that I wouldn’t have used if I’d known they weren’t covered.
IF they’re not covered. They actually may be covered, but you can’t tell it from these statements.
Ducky!