Category: Medicare
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CHRISTUS Health Plan ends its Medicare Advantage coverage Dec. 31, 2026, leaving nearly 9,000 members in Texas and New Mexico to choose new coverage from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7
Nearly 9,000 people in Texas and New Mexico have to find new Medicare coverage for 2027. CHRISTUS Health Plan is ending its Medicare Advantage coverage on Dec. 31, 2026, and the company’s own Medicare page says it plainly: “CHRISTUS Health Medicare Advantage coverage ends December 31, 2026.” The member count comes from trade-press reporting, not…
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Medicare’s $90 check cites October’s premium, with no 2027 Part B figure published
“Medicare Improvement Fund Payment; $90 Payment to Offset October Premium” is the memo line the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says the rebate carries. The wording points at a single month’s premium, and it lands before the number that will set next year’s premium exists in public. Medicare’s own costs page lists only 2026…
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Medicare enrollees whose Advantage plan is not renewed have from December 8 to the last day of February to choose, and fall back to Original Medicare otherwise
For a Medicare Advantage enrollee, the worst plan-year surprise is a letter saying the insurer will not offer the plan again. Medicare.gov sets a calendar-fixed rescue window for that case: between December 8 and the last day in February of the following year, people whose plan is not renewed can choose new coverage. If they…
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An email or a letter from the President follows Medicare’s $90 rebate in mid-October, and paper checks arrive later in the month from the Treasury for beneficiaries without direct deposit
The sequence for the Medicare Improvement Fund premium rebate runs in three steps across October 2026. Most beneficiaries get a $90 direct deposit on or around October 8, an email or a letter from the President follows in mid-October, and paper checks from the U.S. Department of the Treasury go out later in the month…
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Medicare opens a December 8 switching window for members whose plan contract is not renewed, and it runs to the last day of February
Annual Medicare enrollment closes on December 7, but members of a plan that is leaving the program do not run out of time that day. Medicare.gov lists a separate special enrollment period for anyone whose Medicare Advantage plan, drug plan or Cost Plan has a contract with Medicare that is not renewed, and it runs…
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HealthPartners is ending two Journey PPO Medicare Advantage plans in every Minnesota county for 2027 and will send affected members a notice and phone message in October
HealthPartners is dropping two of its Journey PPO Medicare Advantage plans in every Minnesota county for 2027. Journey Steady (PPO) and Journey Stride (PPO) both end statewide, according to the insurer’s own 2027 member page, and members of the affected plans are due an important notice and a phone message during October 2026. The insurer…
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Medicare’s $90 rebate counts per enrollee, not per household, so two Original Medicare members at one address each get one, most by direct deposit on or around October 8
Medicare’s $90 rebate has no household line on it. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services counts 20.8 million people, not 20.8 million addresses, and the payment is made one enrollee at a time. Two Original Medicare members sharing a home are therefore two separate rebates, most of them arriving by direct deposit on or…
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Medicare says its prescription payment plan spreads drug costs across the year but does not lower them
Few federal benefit pages carry a warning about themselves, but Medicare’s description of its Prescription Payment Plan does. The option rearranges when drug bills come due, spreading a member’s out-of-pocket spending across January through December, and Medicare states that the rearranging changes nothing about the total. For anyone who has watched a pharmacy counter total…
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A quarter of Original Medicare patients will be drawn by ZIP code into a new drug payment model starting April 1
Roughly one in four people on Original Medicare Part B is about to be sorted into a new drug-pricing experiment by nothing more than the address on file with Medicare. Nobody signs up, nobody is asked, and as of today nobody outside CMS can say who is in. The model is final, it carries a…
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Medicare Advantage members get nothing from the $90 Part B rebate, and neither do seniors who pay IRMAA
The $90 Part B rebate that starts landing on or around October 8 is not reaching every Medicare household. Three groups are written out of it by the rules: members of Medicare Advantage plans, people whose Part B premium is already paid through Medicaid, and people who pay the income-related surcharge known as IRMAA. Because…