Social Security Error Jeopardizes Medicare Coverage For 250,000 Seniors

(By Susan Jaffe for Kaiser Health News)

At least a quarter of a million Medicare beneficiaries may receive bills for as many as five months of premiums they thought they already paid.

But they shouldn’t toss the letter in the garbage. It’s not a scam or a mistake.

Because of what the Social Security Administration calls “a processing error” that occurred in January, it did not deduct premiums from some seniors’ Social Security checks and it didn’t pay the insurance plans, according to the agency’s “frequently asked questions” page on its website. The problem applies to private drug policies and Medicare Advantage plans that provide both medical and drug coverage and substitute for traditional government-run Medicare.  Continue reading article here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Notice: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link’s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.