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Relocating Challanges
Relocating to a new city, even within the same state,state, can be extremely challenging. Aside from pizza, Chinese food,and barbers, there are medical concerns. My experience has been as a retiree looking for medical, dental, and veterinary care, all can be scams so be careful.
Upon retirement, I received Medicare, not Medicaid; there is a big difference between the two. You have seen the commercials on television for private plans, which you may need an attorney to help explain. Social Security deducts about $100 or so each month from Medicare coverage. They offer HMOs and PPOs, depending on your needs. HMOs need referrals from their primary care doctor; you can’t choose your own specialty doctor. PPOs do not need any referrals, but it is more expensive. I moved from Tampa to Ocala, one hundred miles away, which put me in another network area. If I stayed with the basic Medicare program, I would be out of area for my present doctors, or what they now call healthcare providers. What a joke! I opted for the PPO to keep my current doctors. I will drive over 200 miles round trip to see my gastroenterologist and cardiologists; they are real doctors that actually listen to you.
Health care providers, which are not doctors but nurses. They have no six-year medical degree. They ask questions to determine how to treat you. You will always be put in a certain category. They provide health care based on numbers, not by diagnosis. You are a number.
Remember when the doctor made house calls? The doctor that delivered me, Dr. Violotti, made house calls until he retired. The medical field is controlled by insurance companies. If you need a life-saving medicine that is not approved by the insurance company, you are a royal screw.
Trulance was a medicine prescribed for me, a gastro medicine, for $500 per 20 pills. I sampled some, and it is a lifesaver for me. It will be generic in 10 years, I’ll be 81! Big Pharma is the greediest of all. They prefer to pay a nurse rather than a doctor. In 10 years, there probably won’t be doctors.
If you choose a PPO, you can get a cash allowance through CVS for $35 each month—stuff you really don’t need. We moved out of the area and forfeited this allowance and coverage for a month! We have no coverage until the first of the month.
When looking for a dentist, they are mostly run by big corporations. You visit a dentist; as I did two years ago, he wanted to remove my veneers; there were cavities, which there were not. They take X-rays and determine which root canal to do and which crown to put on, not to mention dental hygiene, which is a crook of shit. Then glance over your teeth. I quit smoking 10 years ago. When can I expect the stains to be cleaned? My projected cost was $12,000, but you can get work done slowly and pay accordingly. What they will do is remove my four front veneers and make me toothless until the work is hurried and I pay in full. The dentist has become a salesman, charging you for unnecessarily dirty work.
Some good advice I found is that there are always neighborhood sites that can lead you in the right direction, like a like a dentist, etc. A very useful tool.
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2 Replies
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Thanks a bunch for sharing your insights about the difficulties that come with relocating, especially for retirees, and the healthcare systems such as Medicare and private plans. Here are some great points you made:
One problem is locating credible service providers of medical, dental, and veterinary services in a different city, which could be full of scams if care is not taken to research well or ask for recommendations.
It’s crucial to know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. This is because these two have dissimilar coverage and eligibility requirements. This means that as someone who has retired, you’ll only qualify for Medicare, not Medicaid.
Private Medicare (such as HMOs or PPOs) can sometimes get complicated. Therefore, it may be useful to work with an attorney or financial adviser to better understand them. They involve trade-offs based on what one needs most at any particular time.
Additionally, budgeting should take into account cost-sharing. Examples include monthly deductions from social security benefits to meet part A, B, C, or D premiums under Original Medicare.
Furthermore, you touched on the differences between HMOs and PPOs, such as the need for referrals in managed care organizations compared with preferred provider organizations, which don’t require prior authorization before visiting a specialist doctor.
In your case, it’s evident that moving within the same state poses huge challenges. This holds especially when trying to secure reliable healthcare service providers. Therefore, people must research new doctors, consider the insurance options available, and seek professional help if necessary. Otherwise, things might not work out perfectly during such periods. Other people will find your tips valuable because they might face similar situations.
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I have moved many times even East to West and back again, this interstate move is the last!