A telehealth appointment that Medicare would have refused to pay for just a few years ago now stays covered, from a patient’s own living room, through the end of 2027. The extension survived because of a spending bill that Congress passed in the final days of a partial government shutdown, and it keeps several pandemic-era…

M Health Fairview, the Minneapolis-based health system, has told patients it will stop scheduling appointments for anyone enrolled in a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan starting January 1, 2027. The health system’s own patient-update page names three other insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners and Medica, along with Original Medicare, as the coverage that…

Two of the most complete Medigap policies on the market, Plan C and Plan F, are not available to everyone who wants one. Anyone who became eligible for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020, cannot buy either plan for the first time, no matter how many years have passed since. CMS’s own consumer guide…

The Medicare Advantage plans Humana is exiting for the 2027 plan year are concentrated among its lower-performing options: most carry a quality rating of 3.5 stars or below, according to a trade-press review of the same investor materials Humana used to disclose the roughly 600,000-member exit. Star ratings are the federal government’s own scorecard for…

Waiting to enroll in Medicare Part B beyond the window when someone first qualifies carries a specific, permanent cost. For every full 12-month period a person could have had Part B but didn’t sign up, Medicare tacks on an extra 10% to the standard monthly premium, and that surcharge keeps getting billed for as long…

A person who puts off joining a Medicare drug plan does not just lose a few months of coverage. Once 63 days pass without any prescription drug coverage after becoming eligible for Medicare, the government adds a permanent surcharge to whatever Part D premium comes next, set at 1% for every full month the gap…

Losing a Medicare Advantage plan does not have to mean losing the chance to buy a Medigap policy without a health screening. Federal rules give members whose Medicare Advantage plan leaves Medicare or leaves their service area a guaranteed-issue right, one that requires an insurer to sell a Medigap policy regardless of health history, and…

Medicare and its enrollees saved $78 million since 2013 by paying adjusted, lower prices for certain drugs administered under Part B rather than the prices manufacturers originally reported, according to a data brief the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released September 21, 2026. Of that total, $1.6 million came from…

Patients covered by a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan will lose in-network access to NKC Health starting October 1, 2026, according to a coverage-update notice the health system posted for patients. The change touches several UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage products at once, and it lands two weeks before Medicare’s annual window for switching plans opens. For patients…

Medicare’s Part B premium could reach $360.60 a month by 2035, according to projections in the 2026 Medicare Trustees Report. That figure is a projection, not an announced or final premium, and it describes a path the trustees expect the standard monthly premium to follow over the next nine years if current trends continue. The…