Does Medicare Help Cover Medical Insurance If You Are on Disability Pay?

Medicare is the federal government's program that provides health insurance for senior citizens and eligible people with disabilities. Medicare provides four different types of coverage to members: hospital insurance, medical insurance, prescription drug coverage and additional treatments not included on the first two types of coverage. The part of Medicare that provides medical insurance is called Medicare Part B.

Medical Insurance And Disability

• If you are enrolled in the Social Security Disability program, you might also be eligible to receive Medicare benefits, depending on how long you receive disability payments. If you qualify to receive Medicare benefits based on your disability benefits, you can enroll in any of the coverage types that Medicare offers, including medical insurance, which is Medicare Part B. However, although Medicare helps you with medicare insurance coverage if you are receiving disability payments, you must pay a monthly premium for this coverage.

Medicare Enrollment

• If you receive Social Security Disability benefits for at least 24 months, you are eligible to receive Medicare benefits. The Social Security office automatically enrolls you in hospital and medical insurance, which are Part A and Part B, upon your 25th month of receiving disability benefits. To be enrolled in the disability program, you must have paid Social Security and Medicare taxes. This also means you can receive Medicare Part A benefits for free. As explained before, Part B requires monthly premiums to provide you with medical insurance coverage.

Medical Insurance

• If you are receiving disability payments, keeping Part B coverage can be helpful to you if your disability required many treatments and doctor visits. The basic coverage of Medicare Part B, or medical insurance, includes costs of doctor visits and preventive care. It also helps you with the costs of hospital outpatient care and the costs of home health care. Preventive care services include anything that helps to maintain your health, as well as anything that helps you to prevent illnesses you have from getting worse.

Considerations

• Your medical insurance coverage, and any other Medicare coverage, lasts for as long as you receive disability payments. Once your disability payments stop, two things can happen. If you are about to turn 65 years old or if you already are 65, your medical insurance coverage will continue without interruptions for as long as you pay the premiums. If you are not yet 65 years old, your medical insurance coverage plus all the Medicare coverage you have last up to 8 1/2 years after your disability payments have ended. After this, you need to buy private insurance if you want to continue to be insured.