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MEDICARE PLAN OFFERED TO BENEFICIARIES IN EIGHT WESTERN SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTIES

MEDICARE PLAN OFFERED TO BENEFICIARIES IN EIGHT WESTERN SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTIES

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved a request by InStil Health Insurance Co. to offer private fee-for-service health care coverage to Medicare beneficiaries in eight western South Carolina  counties.  

 

InStil Health Insurance Co., based in Columbia, S.C., will begin on April 1 serving beneficiaries through its private fee-for-service plan in the primarily rural counties of Abbeville, Aiken, Allendale, Anderson, Barnwell, Edgefield, McCormick and Oconee.   About 75,000 beneficiaries live in the eight counties. Beneficiaries can sign up for the plan during the current open enrollment in Medicare Advantage, formerly known as Medicare+Choice. 

            

“We are pleased InStil Health Insurance Co. has decided to offer this health plan to serve counties in western South Carolina,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "Under the Medicare reform law signed by President Bush, Medicare will provide all seniors - no matter where they live - with better health insurance options, including prescription drug coverage and preventive care.  The law is achieving the President's goals of strengthening and modernizing Medicare.”

 

InStil Health Insurance Co. will offer its InCare Medicare Advantage private fee-for-service plan as another health care option to beneficiaries in the eight counties. The only Medicare Advantage plans currently operating in these counties are Sterling Life Insurance and Humana Inc.  

 

"We want to make sure all Medicare beneficiaries, whether in a Medicare Advantage plan or fee-for-service, are receiving the highest quality health care," CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, Ph.D., M.D., said.  "We are doing more to guarantee that beneficiaries understand the Medicare coverage options available to them.  We also are reminding beneficiaries of the need to work closely with the doctors and other health care providers that give them medical care."

            

A private fee-for-service plan is an insurance program that charges enrollees a premium and cost-sharing amounts and lets beneficiaries choose the providers they want to see, as long as these providers accept the private fee-for-service insurance program.

      

Since Dec. 8, 2003, when President Bush signed the Medicare Modernization Act into law, CMS has approved 45 new contracts with Medicare health plans and 66 service area expansions.  There are currently 139 applications pending for new contracts and 32 service area expansions pending.

 

Medicare Advantage HMOs and fee-for-service plans are available where private companies choose to offer them.  Currently, about 4.6 million Medicare beneficiaries -- out of a total of about 40 million aged and disabled Americans – have enrolled in Medicare HMOs.  Original fee-for-service Medicare, currently chosen by more than 35 million beneficiaries, is available to all beneficiaries.

   

Medicare has a far-reaching consumer information program that includes a national toll-free phone number -- 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) or TTY/TDD, at 877-486-2048 -- an Internet site -- www.medicare.gov -- and a coalition of more than 200 national and local organizations to provide seniors more information.