In an announcement by the US government on Thursday, elderly persons who had failed to receive information on time from UnitedHealth group, regarding their plans for medical health insurance by Medicare, will be given an extra time period of 45 days, to enroll for the Part D program.
The Health Care Financing Administration, U.S. of the Department of Health and Human Services, administers the Medicare system.Medicare is the primary federal health care program for people over age 65. It runs according to a set of complicated financial calculations, but, in essence, Medicare pay s for most of the health-care costs in the case of catastrophic illness. Like Social Security it is best viewed as a supplement to other health care coverage.
UnitedHealth is the biggest provider of Medicare drug plans among others, with 5.75 million people enrolled as of Sept. 30.
Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that as providers such as UnitedHealth failed to mail timely information to current enrollees so they could compare the cost and coverage of plans for 2007, those enrollees will get 45 more days to make a decision.
This is a move that will definitely be appreciated by US elders, many of who had sent out about 5 million frantic calls to Medicare.
Source-Medindia
ANN
