Like Fred, we have had no problems. My wife gets SSD and Medicare. We are Texas residents and she had no problems when she was hospitalized in Boston. Her SSD checks are direct deposit. Besides Boston, she has also used Medicare in South Carolina without any problems.

Do any of you that replied also have a supplemental insurance in addition to the Medicare? I am in the same situation as Ann, and thought she might want to know also.

I really thought this pertained, or should I have started a separate thread?

Thanks,
Jeff

They have to meet the guide lines of your state and it depends on what plan you choose. You need to have a Gov. medicare book and it will give you each state. The one we have is for New Mexico and its called Medicare & You for 2009. I have a supplemental insurance plan called Blue Medicare PPO.
southwestjudy 

We don't yet full time but we spend several months in Virginia during the winter, our home base is in Washington and we try to take 4 to 12 weeks to travel between them. What we found was that you purchase supplemental insurance based on your residence. At least in Washington state plan availability is based on your county of residence. There were two primary types of supplemental plans, medigap and medicare advantage plans. Additionally there are medicare prescription plans. Some medicare advantage plans include presription drug coverage making the add-on prescription drug plan unnecessary. I found the government web site (www.medicare.gov) to be much more useful than any of the commercial consultants that I dealt with.

On the medicare site there is a "Find health and drug" button on the left side of the page. Click on this and you will be asked your state and county of residence, how you presently get health insurance and will be given an opportunity to enter a list of the drugs you currently take. It also asks you the general state of your health (poor, average or good). You do not have to supply the drug list or your current health status but the estimate of your out of pocket expenses is improved if you do. After you enter the required information it will list the plans available for you along with an estimate of your out of pocket costs for you. You can even sign up from the medicare web site. I am not sure, since the open enrollment period is over, that the site will still be fully functional but it really helped us put it all together.

Reading the material is would seem that a medigap policy would be best for those of us who travel a lot. If I recall correctly medigap plans work with any health care provider who accepts Medicare. You will then have to purchase a Medicare drug plan to cover your pharmaceutical. Medicare advantage plans, on the other hand, seem to be either preferred provider organizations (PPO's) or HMO's. I could find no HMO's that would provide more than emergency care when we are away from home. Only two of the PPO's had a national network and only one of them included our primary care physician in their network.

Unfortunately my wife is on disability and Medicare and is not yet 65, which limits our insurance options for Medicare supplements. Medicare recipients under 65 are not eligible for most medigap policies and if they can find one they are eligible for is is likely to be very expensive. Therefore we wound up with a Medicare advantage policy with the only PPO that will cover us as we travel. Fortunately drug are available by mail order as well as at several national drug chains. We like the mail order option because we can get a 90 day supply of most of her drugs. We had a similar arrangement with our previous health insurance and we would have them ship us the 90 day supply while we were at one of our two bases and that would take care of us until we got to the other side of the country.

Good luck figuring this out. I probably spent 40 hours or more on my own as well as wasting considerable time with "advisors" who constantly tried to steer me to the most expensive plan in their portfolio (can anyone spell commission?). It appears that things will continue to change until the new health care law is fully implemented but it is a high stakes game that we cannot opt out of.