“Guaranteed Issue”

Medicare Supplement plans have some periods called “Guaranteed Issue” periods that allow the persons to request for a different plan without declining your insurance plan, excepting the pre-existing conditions, or making you to pay more for any health conditions. The rights of this guaranteed issue (GI) are Federally-mandated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and request to different persons in Medicare who are in charge of registration on some specific situations.

Usually the GI rights take place when your health care insurance is modifying quickly or you begin to loose unintentionally your insurance policy. But some specific coverage companies may establish their own GI situations, and they do; though there exists seven Federally-prescribed GI situations that every Medicare Supplement insurance company must have in mind. If you find yourself in one of these situations you are to apply for your Medicare Supplement plan on a Guaranteed Issue basis. Now let us have a closer look at those seven situations:

- You are insured by employer or union coverage plan that make payments after Medicare, and this insurance is coming to an end.

- You are registered in the Medicare Advantage plan, and this plan is no longer a part of this plan, or you are moving to different service area.

- You are covered by the Medicare SELECT policy, and the situation is the same: you are moving to different service area, so you can save your policy or on the GI basis change it into a new one.

- The insurance company where you are insured become insolvent, that is why you lost your policy.

- You are registered in the Medicare Advantage plan or Pace when you were not registered yet, and in a year you want to change your plan into “original” Medicare (and a Medicare Supplement plan.

- You left your Medicare Supplement into the Medicare Advantage or the Medicare SELECT policy for the first time. You have been in that plan nearly a year and want to go back to Medigap.

- You are going to leave a Medigap policy or leave a Medicare Advantage plan because you do not share their activities and views, and also the company does not work properly.

One more point to discuss is that the individual states also have the right to make their additional GI situations, and some of them even do so. But some of these GI situations can have necessary specifications for the plans. It is very good for you to know all these types of situations if you are insured by the Medicare policy. If you find yourself in some of these types you will have rights yo say about it medically if the GI period is working.

Now medicare is one of the most important issues and one of the most highly discussed topics – indeed medicare is in the list of the challenges of this age, and medicare supplemental insurance is one of the items of the puzzle.

No one is offering you a universal solution to medicare supplemental insurance, be we highly recommend you to find out more about medicare part A, part B and other plans on this site which specializes in medicare supplemental insurance and general medicare topics.