A Buyer's Guide to Medicare Supplements

Medicare Parts A and B offer a number of health care benefits, including home health, preventive services, health screens and hospice care. But original Medicare does not handle 100 percent of every kinds of service. Many Medicare beneficiaries purchase a Medicare supplement plan, commonly called Medigap, to cover more needs. Beneficiaries buy Medigap plans from private insurance companies. Each has its own benefits and costs, although not all plans are available in every county or every state.

Open Enrollment

• Every Medicare recipient has an open enrollment period for Medigap as well. For six months after you are both age 65 and enrolled in Medicare Part B, you can buy any Medigap plan offered in your area from any insurance company. You cannot be turned down or forced to pay higher premiums because of pre-existing health conditions, gender or age during this time. The open enrollment period for Medigap will not changed or extended, ElderCare Online says.

Premiums

• Although Medigap plan benefits are standardized, premiums are not. Different insurance companies are allowed to charge different premiums for the same plan. Some companies use a method called "issue age" to determine premiums, which allow people who first bought them when they were 65 to always pay the same amount. Other companies use a method called attained age, which allows premiums to go up as you get older. State insurance departments are responsible for approving Medigap policy rate changes.

Medicare Select

• Some states let companies offer their Medigap policies in both regular and Medicare Select forms. Medicare Select plans are HMO-style policies that require you to go to certain hospitals or doctors for health care, except for emergencies. The benefits are the same for both regular and Medicare Select policies, however.

Benefits

• Though each state can offer up to 10 standard Medigap policies at any time, they all offer the same basic benefits. These include the reasonable costs of the first three pints of blood per year, Parts A and B coinsurance and extra hospitalization benefits. Medigap plans then each have their own extra benefits, such as foreign travel emergency services, deductible coverage, skilled nursing facility coinsurance and benefits for at-home recovery, according to ElderCare Online.

Plans K, L and F

• Medigap plans K, L and F work differently than other kinds of Medigap policies. Plans K and L are both cost-sharing plans, which cover only a certain amount of benefits and have annual out-of-pocket expenses. As of 2011, Plan K covers 50 percent of services and has an out-of-pocket of $4,620 per year, while Plan L covers 75 percent of most services and has an annual out-of-pocket of $2,310, according to Medicare Interactive. Plan F is offered as both regular and high-deductible policies. The high-deductible Plan F has an annual deductible of $2,000.