An Idea For Saving The Senior Health Care Market
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The Medicare prescription drug bill that passed in Congress brings with it more than a much-needed pharmaceutical benefit to seniors. This legislation really marks the inauguration of the deconstruction of the original fee-for-service Medicare plan.
As you know, the fee-for-service Medicare is a system that has served the needs of multiple millions over more than 3 decades. Sooner or later, it will be replaced by more modern delivery systems of the managed care stripe.
But in the process, the industry needs to find a way to save its own share of the senior market. There is a way to do that, and this is the subject here.
Due to the changes coming down the pike in Medicare, individual agents and carriers in the supplemental Medicare, hospital indemnity and similar markets must now begin the difficult but necessary changeover to new and more serviceable supplemental health care products.
The next generation supplemental product that will help meet the need is called "post-hospital extended care insurance."
This is a type of short-term insurance that protects individuals and families from the burden and cost of caring for the acute care patient who is discharged but needs continuing supportive care.
By virtue of the risk this coverage manages, such insurance offers a benefit with high utility.
This utility is not only for the senior retiree but also for all demographic age groups concerned about managing the unexpected financial fallout of acute care illness. In this age of limited and circumscribed inpatient hospital care coverage, that aspect is of critical importance.
Currently and in the future, the key to cost containment for Medicare recipients is removal of the patient from the high-end inpatient care venue (the hospital) at the earliest point possible.
(By the way, this cost-containment approach is also the trend for care involving individuals who have private health insurance and/or group health insurance, including managed care plans.)
