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Be Careful Before You Have Any Scheduled Hospital Treatment
Be Careful Before You Have Any Scheduled Hospital Treatment
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WARNING: Be Careful Before You Have Any Scheduled Hospitalization
TREA has learned that some hospitals are playing games with Medicare and as a result, some Tricare insured's are ending up owing hospitals large amounts of money. Here are the details. Recently, some Tricare insured's have gone into the hospital thinking that their medical procedure was covered by both Tricare and Medicare. However, after they go home they discovered that the hospital will not accept Medicare payments. Since hospitals must accept Medicare if they accept Tricare, why is this happening?
It turns out that the hospitals still accept Tricare, and they still accept Medicare payments if the patient has previously been treated in that hospital. However, they are not accepting any new Medicare patients. Thus, if the Tricare insured has not previously been a patient at that hospital, the patient ends up having to pay the Medicare portion of the bill out of pocket. Although this seems very unfair to us and is really "playing games" with Medicare and with patients, it is legal. Therefore, we warn you to make sure anytime you are having scheduled hospitalization that the hospital will take both Tricare and Medicare if you are a new patient in that hospital.
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